LAFS 3 - The Science of Yes
by thecirclesquare
Summary: The final installment of the Love At First Science Series. The beginning of the end. A not-so-mysterious guest shows up at Delphine's wedding, forcing her to make a choice between her past and her present. Cosima/Delphine, Cophine, Science Girlfriends, femslash
1. Chapter 1

_The Beginning of the End_

* * *

Every story has a beginning and an ending. I've already told you the beginning, and now...now I will tell you the ending.

Or should I say, I will tell you the beginning of the ending?

It's all so confusing, the way life moves in circles.

The beginning of the ending starts back in San Francisco on another sunny day in summer. I stood by the window of my dressing room. I pulled the curtain to the side. I looked out over the dark green lawn of the country club, where all the guests milled about, cocktails in their hands and smiles on their faces.

I saw my parents, my mother dressed in a lovely white skirt suit, my father in his best tuxedo, white gloves on his hands that prevented him from tasting the assortment of h'orderves that circled the party on silver serving trays. He looked but he did not touch, keeping his hands clasped behind his back, biting back his temptation as he bit his lower lip.

I must have gotten the habit from him, because I, too, bit down on my lip, despite the waxy red lipstick that the makeup artist had just so carefully applied.

 _What can be applied can be reapplied,_ I thought distantly as I scanned the faces of the guests.

My eyes darted back and forth over their faces, stunned by the amount of strangers that were in attendance at my own wedding.

 _Who are these people?_ I wondered.

But even as I thought it, I knew I didn't care. Their faces were sorted out easily beneath my filtered gaze. Strangers and not strangers. Strange and not strange. I was looking for only one face.

She was no stranger, but should I see her here, on this day, amongst my wedding guests, it would most certainly be strange.

 _She's not coming,_ I thought. _She never was._

I felt suddenly hot in the sunlight. I felt suddenly burdened by the weight of my dress. My heart pounded and I turned away from the window. I walked to the sofa and sat myself down, as carefully as I could, so as not to rupture the seams of the dress, which had only been sewn on minutes before.

I remembered the seamstress' warning not to make any sudden movements, and I wondered what she had expected me to do.

"So, no yoga?" I'd said.

She glanced up at me from where she kneeled by my side, tugging the last bit of string tight—not amused. She cut the string and stood.

"No," she'd said simply. "Now I must go check on the other Missus."

Then she was gone and I was left alone to wait for my father in his diligently pristine white gloves. Yes, I was to sit there and wait for him to escort me down the aisle, escort me toward my partner, my soon-to-be wife, my future, my new beginning.

My heart pounded against the seams, and I wondered why the seamstress hadn't warned against this. I wondered if a dress seam had ever burst from a beating heart. I touched my own forehead. I was sweating—another thing I was not supposed to do.

I stood. I walked to the mirror. I leaned in with a tissue in hand, and I dabbed at my own damp skin, careful not to obscure my painted face. Or was it the other way around? Was the makeup obscuring me? It was hard to tell.

The door swung open. I stood up, expecting my father, suddenly embarrassed at my flustered state.

But it was only Laurent. He held a white rose in his hand. When he saw me he smiled slyly.

"You'll soon have a visitor," he whispered as he leaned against the door.

My heart pounded! Pounded! I took a breath.

"Who?"

 _Please, let it be her,_ I thought. _Just let it be her._

"A very special person, of course," he said.

"Who?"

"Oh...just your darling."

"Laurent, please be specific. I don't have time for your games."

His smile faded. I had hurt him with my tone, but he tried to brush it off.

"Do you have more than one darling?"

He had meant it to be playful, but I was not in the mood to play. I turned away, sitting again, less carefully this time, in front of the mirror.

"Delphine?" he said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I think my dress is too tight. I can't breathe!"

I pulled at the sides of the dress where it dug into my ribs.

"And I can't stop sweating! If I keep sweating like this I'm going to ruin my makeup, and we paid so much for that damned makeup artist!"

Laurent set the rose down on the table. With his hands on my shoulders he smiled at me through the mirror.

"Don't worry. Everything will be done within the hour. It's just nerves."

"I know," I said, reaching for the rose.

I twirled the thing in my hands, careful to avoid the thorns. I watched the white petals as they fell backwards, pulled by the centrifugal force. And when I stopped spinning the rose, the petals bounced back upright.

 _Yes,_ I thought. _Things are spinning now. But soon, the spinning will stop. Soon, I will be upright._

"Besides," Laurent said. "I'm having some refreshments sent up. That might help take the edge off."

I twirled the rose again. I watched the petals spread wide, twirling, twirling, circles in circles. I thought I heard the sound of laughter. I thought I saw flashing lights, blurs in my vision, circles in circles, a laugh next to me. I closed my eyes.

* * *

 _She laughed with her face very close to mine. We stumbled down the crooked steps of the Whirl-and-Twirl 2000. She looked up at me, all the lights of the ferris wheel reflected in the lenses of her glasses._

" _Do you want to ride it again?"_

" _Non, non. Once is enough."_

" _Oh, come on! Once is never enough!"_

* * *

"Delphine?" Laurent said.

A thorn caught my thumb. My eyes snapped open.

"What?" I said.

"I thought it would be nice for our two lovebirds to have a little toast before the big moment!"

"Laurent, you didn't have to do that. We aren't supposed to see each other before the ceremony."

There was a knock at the door.

"Why not?" Laurent said, letting the waiter into the room.

"I don't know. It's tradition."

"And since when do you care about tradition?"

I glanced again at the white rose, at Laurent's white bow-tie, at my own white dress.

* * *

 _I heard her laughter again, close to my ear. A kiss on the cheek. A rustle of sheets as she propped herself up on her elbows. A lamp behind her. A shy smile on her face. Sounds of traffic passing outside in the late night air._

" _What will our wedding look like?"_

" _Our wedding?"_

" _Yeah, I mean, you're obviously going to marry me."_

" _Don't you think you should propose first."_

" _Nah, I don't have to. I already know."_

" _Do you?"_

" _Yeah. I imagine our wedding would be, like, super simple. No church. No minister. No strangers."_

" _Well, if that's all you want, we can go to the courthouse right now."_

" _No! That's not what I mean. I mean, I want it to be intimate, romantic. Just you and me, and the people we love. And like, none of that white purity bullshit."_

" _No white?"_

" _No way."_

" _What will you wear, then?"_

 _She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "I don't know. Maybe red."_

" _Of course," I said, touching her face. Kissing her mouth._

* * *

I set the rose aside and winced at the tiny prick it had left on my thumb.

"It's not me you have to convince," I said. "It's the other one. She says it's more romantic this way."

"Nonsense. What's more romantic than sharing a little private intimacy before the big moment?"

I shrugged my shoulders as the waiter rolled the table into the center of the dressing room. He wore white gloves, just like my father. He set out two champagne flutes, then removed the lid from the ice bucket and set it aside.

Something about the bottle caught my eye. The top of it was not wrapped in gold or silver foil. No, it was rather dark, and squared off, much more like a bottle of wine than a bottle of champagne.

"Enjoy," the waiter said calmly before making his exit.

Laurent walked to the table, reaching for the bottle, and I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

"Something's not right," I said.

"I told you it's just nerves," he said.

"No," I said. "Call the waiter."

"What?" he said, his hand resting on the bottleneck before pulling the thing out.

"That's not champagne," I said, standing suddenly, moving across the room, barely noticing the stretching seams at my side. "Call the waiter!"

"What are you talking about?" Laurent said, a dismissive smile on his face.

I tried to stop him, but even as I reached out, even as the freshly sewn seam stretched to it's breaking point, he didn't stop.

No, he pulled the bottle out, a dark wine bottle with a simple white label; a label that was now soiled because it was never intended to be dunked in a bucket of ice. But even through the blotches I knew what it said. I would recognize that label anywhere. In fact, I think I had recognized it as soon as the waiter had opened the ice bucket.

Laurent twisted the bottle in his hands, lifting it to his face and squinting.

"Well," he said. "What do we have here?"

"It's Cabernet Sauvignon," I said, my heart pounding. "Alpha Omega Cabernet Sauvignon."

"Do you know it?" he asked.

"Oui," I said, turning away from him.

"Well, should I call the waiter?"

"Non," I said. "I need to think."

"You need to think? There's not much time for..."

"Please, just shut up, Laurent."

I walked to the window. I pulled the curtain aside. I looked down over the dark green lawn, but all the guests were gone. Presumably, everyone had moved inside. Everyone had set themselves in the pews, the left side of the aisle for her family, the right side for mine. Everyone was waiting, now. Everyone except…

I saw a woman, just on the the other side of the lawn. I saw her only for a moment, dressed in dark red—of course—her hair tied up onto the top her head. But then she stepped out through the front gate and disappeared behind the ivy-covered wall.

I reached out. I pressed my hand flat against the window pane.

"Cosima…" I whispered.

The door opened and closed behind me.

"Melanie!" Laurent shouted. "There you are! I was beginning to think you'd rejected my invitation!"

I spun around—spinning, spinning.

There she was, just inside the door, her eyes wide when she saw me, her face bright with joy and anticipation, her lips pink, her eyes blue, her hair blonde.

She was my future. She was my fiancé. She was my soon-to-be wife.

She was not Cosima.


	2. Chapter 2

_The Night Before_

* * *

Let me back up. Let me start again. Let me start on the night before. It's embarrassing, isn't it—not knowing where your own story begins?

I had just gotten home, just climbed the steps to the stoop of our apartment, just pushed open the front door to find a note and a bottle of champagne on the end table in the narrow entryway.

A gift from Melanie, no doubt.

The little table lamp had been left on, but the rest of the house was dark. I picked up the bottle before I picked up the note. It was still cold. I wondered how Melanie had managed it.

We had been together all night, you see, along with our family and friends, at the rehearsal dinner. We had eaten together, laughed together, and even cried together over my mother's speech. We had signed statements, finalized meal options, and reorganized seating arrangements. She hadn't left my side once, so there was no way she could have snuck home.

I picked up the note. I smiled.

The note hadn't been from Melanie at all, but from her sister and maid of honor. She thanked me kindly for allowing her to steal Melanie away on her last night of freedom. Perhaps I should have been jealous, thinking of Melanie out on the town, talking to other women. But I feared nothing. Melanie was the dependable type. They'd probably be home before midnight.

I slipped out of my heels, picked up the bottle—though I was already tipsy from two toasts at dinner—and headed down the dark hallway to the bedroom.

I found the second half of my bribe on the bathroom counter. It was a gift basket of bath bombs, lotions, luffas, and candles. I smiled to myself and immediately made my way to the bathtub to run a bath.

I sat there for a long time with my hand beneath the stream of hot water, just listening as it pounded against the bottom of the bathtub, noting distantly how the skin on the back of my hand burned. I waited for the pain to give way to a sort of numbness, then I turned the temperature up just a little bit more.

That was always my favorite part of the bath, the filling of the tub, the preparation, the ritual.

I stood up. I undressed. I stepped to the counter and pulled open the cellophane wrapping. Inside the gift basket, I found a bath bomb, round and pink. It smelled like cinnamon and citrus. It smelled like mulled wine and colder seasons. It smelled like…

 _Christmas._

The thought struck me with a twinge of nostalgia. I felt queasy. I shook my head and told myself it was nothing. But I tossed the thing into the water before I had a chance to change my mind.

I lit three tealights, placing one in the corner of the bath and the other two on the countertop. I turned off the light, and sat on the edge of the tub, suddenly surrounded by a dim warmth, a tired anticipation. I waited for the tub to fill completely, looking forward to the moment that I would submerge myself all at once, and soon after, the moment that my body would become pleasantly numb.

The bath bomb fizzled and foamed, filling the room with a familiar feeling. It was the feeling that was familiar, you see, more than the fragrance.

It was the feeling of another era, a nostalgia that was equal parts faded and immediate.

 _That was years ago,_ I thought.

But the thought was no consolation. The smell persisted, and so the memories persisted. A subtle romantic feeling, a bubbling up of desire.

I stepped into the bath, and though my skin screamed all the way up to my calves, I lowered myself into the water. A chill ran up my spine to the very top of my head. I closed my eyes. I gritted my teeth. I waited for the pain to pass.

I waited for the feeling to pass, too. I waited for the fragrance to become so familiar that I hardly noticed it at all. But when I opened my eyes, the water had turned red instead of pink, and the bubbles settled against my knees and breasts. I leaned back.

The feeling did not pass. No, I could not get the scene out of my head—

* * *

 _The little apartment in the Mission District. The burgundy pillows on an enormous bed. The empty wine bottle on a messy desk. The light from the window, the light from her eyes, the red of her mouth. A sip of wine. The butterflies in my stomach._

" _You know what?"_

" _What?"_

" _Your house feels like Christmas."_

" _What?"_

 _A smile. A glance around the room. An intertwining of fingers._

" _Oui, oui. It definitely feels like Christmas in here_ — _like a timeless, cozy winter holiday."_

" _Is that a good thing?"_

 _Another smile. Another sip. Another sniff of cinnamon._

* * *

Or maybe I imagined that part. Maybe there was no cinnamon scent there that night.

Memory can be so persistent in its inaccuracies, retaining details you'd rather forget while letting others slip away. No, there is no double agent like memory, justifying one reality to your mind, all the while conspiring with your heart to keep a completely different record.

I sighed and sat up, a wave of unrest washing over me.

"Why tonight?"

I spoke into the darkness, and so only my own voice returned.

 _Why tonight?_ I thought again, silently this time, because I could not bear the absence of an answer. _Why do these thoughts appear tonight? On the eve of my wedding?_

I leaned over the side of the tub, reaching for the champagne bottle. I peeled away the foil and popped the cork, careful to keep the thing contained beneath a hand towel.

I took a long swig straight from the bottle.

* * *

 _Sweet bubbles. Light bubbles. Bubbles of champagne. Bubbles of laughter. A chiming of the fork against the crystal. A raising of glasses. A toast to the happy couple._

 _My mother stands, her hands shaking as she holds the wrinkled notecard close to her chest. She opens her mouth. She reads, her voice wavering. She is both nervous and sincere._

" _Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud…"_

 _A speech neither clever nor original, but appropriate. A collection of heartfelt sighs from the guests._

" _It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs…"_

 _A sniffle next to me._

 _I turn in time to catch Melanie's tears, to wipe them away with my fingertip, to squeeze her hand in solidarity._

" _...It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."_

 _A clapping of hands followed by a swell of raised glasses. A fluttering of movement amongst the guests that only seems to accentuate the stillness in the middle of the room._

 _An empty chair at a half empty table in the middle of the room. I can't see the namecard of the missing guest, but I don't need to. I know whose name is on the RSVP_ — _Cosima Niehaus_ — _and I know she will never actually show._

 _A squeeze at my side. Another toast. Another sip of champagne. Bubbles that burn all the way down._

* * *

I decided I didn't want the champagne after all. I set the bottle down more forcefully than I had intended, and suddenly I realized I was drunk.

The water was hot. My skin had never quite adjusted to the temperature. The cinnamon and citrus swirled around me in small gusts of air. I told myself to stay still, but even then the currents came up from the surface of the water, up over my breasts, up under my chin, up into my nose.

I closed my eyes, and in an instant, I saw her face rising up as well, as if she had just been on her knees and was now rising to kiss me—her eyes dark, her lips pink, her mouth open.

I moaned.

Startled at the sound of it, I covered my own mouth. I glanced around, forgetting momentarily that no one was within earshot.

I laughed at myself, but soon my humor gave way to an aggravated sort of brooding.

 _I shouldn't think of these things,_ I thought. _Not tonight._

But then, as tipsy as I was, I found myself leaning back. I found myself reaching down into the water, reaching absent-mindedly between my own legs.

 _This is not about her,_ I told myself. _This is about me. Fantasies and memories are mine to do with as I wish._

Besides, wasn't I supposed to have a little fun while Melanie was gone? It's not like it was the first time I'd ever masturbated in that bathtub. It wasn't the first time I'd thought about Cosima, either. These things were harmless. Or so I told myself as I ran my finger in leisurely circles over my clit.

 _Just for old time's sake,_ I told myself. _Just one last time. Just to say good bye._

But no sooner had I pushed inside myself did I hear a knocking from the front door. I sat straight up. I called Melanie's name. I listened for her key in the door.

There was no answer.

I stood, reaching for my phone. No calls. No messages. I called Melanie's name again.

Silence. Then…

 _KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!_

"Merde," I said to myself.

I reached for my bathrobe. I wrapped it around myself. I left the bathroom, the water still in the tub, the cinnamon still in the air.

I made my way down the darkened hall toward the lamplight of the entryway. I saw the silhouette through the narrow frosted glass window that framed the door, but she was no more than a frantic shadow. She pounded again.

 _KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!_

"Just a second!" I called.

But as I drew closer to the door, I knew something wasn't right.

"Melanie?" I said.

The shadow on the other side of the frosted glass took a step back, then became still, as if listening carefully.

 _That's not Melanie._

I froze, goosebumps running up my arms. It was too late to pretend I wasn't home. Whoever was outside had already heard me. I considered switching off the light anyway and hoping they would just leave.

But then I heard the faintest sound, a soft sniffle of the nose, not once but twice. It was a quiet sound. A vulnerable sound. Not a hint of aggression in it.

I stepped to the peephole and looked out just in time to catch glimpse of the stranger's back. But there was nothing strange about her maroon coat, her black leggings, her dreads. There was nothing strange in the way she hung her head, or the way she moved down the steps in a somber gait.

I gasped.

I opened the door. I stepped out onto the stoop, dripping pink bathwater onto the concrete. I called her name.

"Cosima!"

It was only after she turned that I remembered my state of undress. I shrunk back into the doorway and clutched the bathrobe closed at my neck.

"Hey," she said.

She stood at the bottom step, looking up, leaning against the brick banister wall. She tried to smile, but it only made her look sad. The street sloped steeply down behind her, opening up to a stunning view of the city.

A young couple walked by, arm-in-arm, enjoying the pleasantly clear evening. I retreated even further into the entryway, and in retreating it was as though I lured her forward. She moved up the steps, but she didn't say a word.

My heart pounded.

"What are you doing here?" I said.

She shrugged her shoulders.

Her sad smile fell away to something more serious, something tight-lipped and scared. I knew the face. She had something to say—maybe many things—maybe years of things—so many things that her lips trembled at the effort to keep them contained.

I knew the feeling.

I took a quick look up the street. I took a quick look down. I stepped aside, inviting her in without a single word.

She stepped into the entryway. I closed the door.

We stood in that small space, face to face, me with my back to the door, her with her back to the dark hall behind her, the little lamp on the table beside us, lighting us up in soft white.

I wanted to see her—wanted to stare—but something inside me resisted.

She didn't belong here, not in this neighborhood, not in this apartment, not in this lamplight. These were the places I had carved out separate from her. These were the places in which I had stowed myself away for over a year.

This was the unspoken deal, the unwritten treaty. I had my half of San Francisco, and she had hers.

But here she was, in Bernal Heights, filling the space with hints of herself—of her body, of her hesitancy, of her perfume—and I knew these impressions would linger long after she was gone.

And for this reason, I could not look at her, not directly. I looked away.

I looked at the table instead. I looked at the little note Melanie's sister had left. I looked at a pile of mail addressed to Melanie and me. I stacked and restacked the pile neatly on the corner of the table, and still Cosima said nothing.

"Well?" she said, finally.

The question caught me off guard. I looked up, indignant.

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"I'm not the one with something to say."

"Not even, hello?"

I hadn't noticed the height of my anger until she knocked it down a peg. I relented, but only slightly.

"Hello," I said, but I could not bring myself to repeat her name.

Silence, again.

The lamplight—the soft white light—lit up Cosima's cheeks and darkened her eyes. But it didn't matter that her eyes were dark. I could tell she had been crying, perhaps very recently.

"Hello—" she started, her voice thick.

I knew she wanted to say more, but she closed her mouth suddenly, swallowing the last syllable before it could turn into a new word.

 _Baby._

But I was not her baby. Not anymore.

Even as I was overcome with the urge to step toward her, to wipe her cheek, to check for any stray tears, even then I was not her baby.

I reminded myself of the fact and crossed my arms.

"What do you want? Why are you here?" I said. _You shouldn't be here._

"Delphine—" she said, taking a step toward me.

I stepped backwards and found myself pressed up against the door.

"You do realize I'm getting married tomorrow, right?" I said. "I mean, I assume that's why you are here."

"Yes, I know," she said, slouching and deflated. "And I just wanted to—"

"Just wanted to what?"

She opened her mouth, but I would not let her speak.

"Non. You know what? I don't care what you want, because I don't have to care. I don't have to care—do you understand that? So, whatever it is that you have to say, just say it and leave—if that will make you feel better."

My words, which I had meant to push her away, only seemed to bring her to life. She stood taller. She exhaled through her nose. She looked me in the eye.

She did not believe me.

"You invited me here," she said, shaking her head slightly. Her voice was both angry and gentle.

"Non," I said, looking away. "Non. I didn't invite you here. Not to my home."

"Fine," she relented. "Fine, not to your home. But you invited me to your wedding, Delphine. To your wedding."

"And?"

"And?!" she said, her voice becoming more shrill.

"Yes. You said, yourself, that we should still be in each other's lives. You said we should be friends."

"Being in each other's lives means, like, getting Facebook updates and an occasional email. Being in each other's lives does _not_ mean getting an invitation to your wedding less than a year after you refused my proposal!"

She pushed even further forward, closing the space between us, and I pushed further back against the door. Instinctively, I turned my head to the side.

"I didn't think you'd actually show," I whispered. "Otherwise, I never would have sent it."

"Fuck!" Cosima shouted.

She raised a hand to her forehead, and turned away. She leaned her head back. She arched her spine, pushing her chest forward in a frustrated pose. She inhaled. She exhaled. She dropped her hand and shoved it into her coat pocket. Yes, she shoved both hands—both fists—into her coat pockets.

Then she turned back toward me, her shoulders rising and falling with her frustrated breath. A reflection from the street flashed across her face, filtered by the frosted glass window.

There it was again—the desire to touch her, to console her, to run my thumb along her brow and cheek. I was seized with a strong melancholy, right in my gut.

 _Why can't I?_ I thought. _What can't I touch her? Where is it written, and by whom?_

But I already knew the answer. I already knew. I had done this to myself.

Another reflection. Another flash of light in her eyes. And in an instant, her expression changed. I knew that expression. I recognized it immediately.

She spoke directly, her eyes never leaving my lips.

"You invited me, so…"

It was barely more than a whisper, but it was _her_ whisper, and her whispers always did have a way of seducing me.

"Here I am."

She moved fast, stepping close, leaning up, pressing her lips against mine before I could resist.

Yes, she pressed her lips pressed against mine, and then her hand was on my face, squeezing at the corners of my mouth the way she did when she wanted inside. I did what she wanted.

It happened as fast as a reflex. It happened once, then she stepped away. We locked eyes. Then it happened again. And again.

Soon, she had me up against the door, the smallest of spaces between our bodies. Soon, she was kissing me so hard that you could hardly call it kissing at all.

No, she was not kissing. She was possessing. She was claiming. She was calling. And me? I was relenting. Then I was accepting. Then I was inviting.

I opened my mouth. I took her in. And she _did_ push in. She pushed so far and so hard against my mouth that her teeth pinched the flesh of my lips against my own teeth. Her tongue took the space of my own tongue. Her breath took the place of my own breath. In and out. In and out.

For a moment—mouth wide open—I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking, too.

And all those doubts from the bathtub—the worries about weddings, about wants and rules— they all passed by as easily as the shadows on the street. I noted them, but they seemed to have nothing to do with me. They laughed and moved on and I opened my mouth wider.

"I'm here," Cosima said, frantically pulling the robe away from my chest. "I'm here now."

I closed my eyes, but I knew what she would look like, just from the catch in her voice. Yes, I knew what she would look like, gazing at my naked body. I closed my eyes tighter.

 _This is a dream_ , I told myself.

But when I reached my hands around her shoulders, she was as solid as a stone. She leaned forward. She took my nipple into her hand, and then into her mouth. She bit me, and the pain was solid, too. I pushed forward. I pushed toward it.

She was quick in her possession. She wasted little time in pulling the robe open completely, in pushing me up onto the table.

I was quick in my invitation, spreading my legs, wrapping them around her waist.

The lamp fell to the floor. The bulb did not break but lit us from below.

She grabbed my hands. She held them flat on the table. She pulled her mouth away.

At that I opened my eyes. She looked up at me, her face a contorted mask of emotions. She was so many things in that moment—so, so many things. She was angry. She was aroused. She was heart-broken. She was desperate and on the verge of tears. She was tender.

It was the tenderness that I couldn't bear. I did not want her tenderness. If I took her tenderness, I would never be able to forgive myself for it. It was better to take her lust instead.

I bucked my hips against her, but she held me still by the arms. I bucked again, and I saw the effects immediately. I saw it in her eyes, and in her cheeks. She clenched her teeth, and her expression grew hard.

"What do you want, Delphine?"

I bit my lip. I ground my crotch down against the front of her. She pulled her hips away, and leaned her weight harder against my wrists.

"What do you want?"

I summoned all of my leftover love—all of it—and I held it in my mouth until it was bitter like hate.

"Just fucking tell me what you want!" she shouted.

"I want you!"

I spat it at her—all of my bitter love/hate.

"You want me how?!"

"You know," I said through clenched teeth.

"You want me to—" she said, pressing her hips against me again. "Fuck you?"

"Yes," I whispered.

She relented. She let go of my wrists. She leaned back, reaching a hand down to my clit, not even sighing when she touched me, not even acknowledging my desperate wetness. But I saw it—in her eyes, in the slightest flutter of her eyelashes. She grabbed at me, running her fingers roughly against me, reaching far back until her hand was touching all of the good spots all at once—ass, pussy, clit.

 _Possessed. Claimed. Called._

I closed my eyes in anticipation.

She ran her fingers back and forth for a moment, then without hesitation she pushed deep inside me.

"Yes," I said, reaching for her arms.

But as soon as I touched her, she froze in place.

"No," she said.

My eyes shot open.

"What?"

"I'm not going to fuck you," she said.

"Cosima, I—"

"You invited me—you do it."

I searched her face for the tenderness that I had just chased away. There was none. There was only her ultimatum. Her proposition. Her new proposal.

* * *

" _Yes, or no?" she says._

" _Cosima, get up! You're embarrassing me!"_

 _She kneels before me, hands outstretched. She looks up as my colleagues look on. Chatter in the background. Party noises. Bad pop music and bad dance moves._

 _My beating heart. My shaking hands. A desire to disappear._

" _No," she says. "I'm not leaving until you say yes."_

 _I glance to my side. Melanie sips on her chardonnay. She tries to be polite, but I see the disappointment in her eyes._

" _Cosima!" I whisper, leaning close. "This is not the time or place!"_

" _Why not? It's a celebration, isn't it? Now we have one more reason to celebrate!"_

 _I grab her by the wrist. I pull her aside. I hide her in the bathroom and close the door. I know people can hear me shouting anyway._

" _Are you out of your mind?! What were you thinking?!"_

" _This is what you wanted, isn't it? Marriage? Security? I'm yours, Delphine, and if you need a ring to prove that_ —"

" _I don't need a ring, Cosima. I don't need marriage! I don't need any of that."_

" _Then what? What's the problem?"_

* * *

I bucked my hips forward, pushing against her until she was knuckles deep inside me. She moaned, but she didn't move. Leaning back on one hand and wrapping the other around her neck, I bucked against her again—hard.

I tried to pull her closer, but she braced herself against me, her body as stiff as a board. She only watched and waited, leaving me desperate for her.

But my desperation didn't matter. With my legs wrapped around her like that, I had no traction. I could only move my hips in circles—hungry, desperate circles that only satisfied the very tip of my desire. The circles grew larger, louder, wetter, and still she didn't move.

I hated it.

I hated how much I wanted her. I hated how easy it was for her to hold back.

* * *

" _What's the problem?" she says._

 _Sweaty palms. Sweaty armpits. Anger. Anger. Anger._

" _I can't do this anymore. I just can't."_

 _Panic in her eyes, she reaches for me. She tries to kiss me._

" _Non," I say. "Non, non."_

* * *

The memory was awful. I closed my eyes to it. I shook my head. I bit my lip and grit my teeth.

 _I don't want it!_ I thought. _I don't want these memories anymore!_

And still, I did not stop my hips. Still, she did nothing to help me. I felt her body shake in response, but she did not move. She did not open her mouth or close her eyes. She only watched me. But slowly, slowly, a hint of her heartbreak revealed itself in the corners of her eyes, in the furrow of her brow.

I rubbed vigorously at the back of her neck, pulled at her ear. I pulled her forward, and though she fought me with her body, in her eyes I could see she was giving in.

"Cosima, please," I whispered.

She leaned the littlest bit forward, her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. I seized the chance. I pulled her the rest of the way. I pulled her toward my mouth. But at the last moment she stopped me.

"Cosima!" I whimpered. "Please!"

Our eyes locked, and I was flooded with an awful tenderness for her. It welled up from my stomach. Her face, so close to my own, took up the entire field of my vision. For a moment her face became everything—perhaps had always been everything. For a moment everything was just right.

I touched her cheek. I touched her mouth.

"Baby," I whispered. "Baby, I miss you."

At that her eyes grew wide, her hips grew frantic, her ribs rattled with a deep moan.

She kissed me, softly, holding my face.

She pushed me back, gently, by my shoulder. She leaned my head against the wall. She grabbed my legs and pulled me forward by my hips until my ass was on the very edge of the table. She spread me wide, setting each foot on the table on either side of herself. All of this she did, and she was not as hard as a stone, but as fluid as a dancer.

 _Baby._

She looked down. She gazed between my legs, her finger still inside me. She pulled it out completely and ran it up and down, all the way up to my clit, all the way down to my ass, her mouth open, her cheeks red, the slightest smile on her face. She bit her lip.

I shivered those old shivers—the Cosima shivers.

"Baby…" I whimpered again.

"I missed you, too," she said, running her finger up and down, up and down.

And as she did it, all sorts of strange things happened. She brought the blood to the surface of me. She brought electricity. She brought heat. My body burned in a way it hadn't—not in a long time.

She pushed her fingers deep inside—the way that only she did—all the way inside until her balled up fist pressed against me. I moaned, because I knew what was coming. I knew that in a moment, she would pull out and repeat, pressing hard against me again. I knew that she would keep it up, moving faster and faster with each stroke, until finally she was pounding me, and the force of her entire hand would explode through my pelvis, over and over.

The rhythm was the same—the rhythm of her love—familiar and sweet and overwhelming.

I leaned back for as long as I could take it, her continuous pounding. I cried out, but soon her other hand was over my mouth. She held it there as I whimpered against her palm. I watched her body, the way she threw the weight of her whole body behind her hand. I tried to be quiet, but her thrusts knocked little sounds out of me, sounds I couldn't control.

My legs shook and fell in toward her. I couldn't control those, either.

She thrust once, very deep and curled her fingers inside me. Then she grabbed my knee, resting it against her side.

"Relax, baby," she said.

I leaned the other knee against her, too, and sat up, pulling her into another kiss.

* * *

" _Just kiss me, Delphine," she says, kissing my neck and pushing her knee between my legs._

" _Stop!"_

 _She steps away, hurt and out of breath._

" _I can't take this, I'm sorry."_

" _Can't take what?!" she shouts. "I love you!"_

" _I can't take this! This up and down! This coming and going! You show up and it's amazing, and I've never met someone who makes me as happy as you!—Who makes me feel as good as you do!"_

" _Then what's the problem?"_

" _I've never met someone who makes me as miserable as you, either. When you leave, it's_ — _I'm just—it's so lonely. It's so fucking lonely to be in love with you. I just can't do it anymore."_

* * *

I pulled her into another kiss. Her mouth was soft—hot. I opened mine wide, knowing that soon she would fill the space with herself.

 _This is what I wanted,_ I thought. _This is what I wanted all along. To be full of you. To fill my life with you._

She curled her fingers inside me. She curled her tongue, too. They moved together—the rhythm of her love.

I trembled and trembled, holding fast to her shoulders, to her back. I was close to coming, and she knew it.

She kissed my neck, and then my ear, taking the whole thing into her mouth.

 _Shivers and shivers and shivers._

"Touch yourself," she said.

"Cosima!"

Her words aroused me, released me. I reached for my clit.

It was so big! I was so wet!

I moved my finger in quick circles, picking up right where I had left off in the bathtub.

I held Cosima close to me, buried my face in her shoulder, but I bucked my hips against her, and she fucked me as hard and as fast as she could.

And with each thrust she brought out that word, her name, her place— _baby, baby, baby_.

"Baby!" I whimpered over and over. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," she finally replied, her voice thick, her thrusting deep.

"I—"

 _Thrust._

"Missed—"

 _Deeper thrust._

"You—"

I felt it rising up. I felt it, coming fast. I pulled her close. I bit on her neck.

"Too!"

She picked up the rhythm again, pounding against me with the last bit of desperate energy she had. I rubbed vigorously against my own clit, knowing that soon she would melt against me and I would melt against her.

I wanted to see her face. I wanted her to be my world in that moment.

"Look at me, look at me," I said.

She did. We pressed our sweaty foreheads together. I kissed her lips once. Her face was the world. Her face was my heart. Her face was my arousal and my sorrow.

"I love you," she whispered. "Don't you love me still?"

I kissed her.

 _Yes._

"Don't you want me still?" she said.

 _Yes!_

She thrust hard, aggressively.

"Don't you?" she grunted.

"Yes!" I whimpered. "Yes, yes, yes."

She cried out. She choked back. She shuddered against me, spazzing with the waves of her orgasm. She leaned her forehead against mine and closed her eyes so tight but her mouth was so open—coming, coming against me.

Seeing her like that, my own orgasm came fast, peaking in one final buck against her, then rippling through my body in little beats of pleasure.

Soon we leaned against each other. My legs fell to the floor. My arms pulled her close. My head rested heavily on her shoulder. I squeezed at her arms, at her ribs. I sniffed in the smell of her coat. It smelled like her apartment. It smelled like another lifetime. It smelled nothing like cinnamon.

 _I guess I was wrong about that_ , I thought.

Shadows passed on the street—so many of them—and still we stood, unwilling to break our embrace. Distantly, I wondered about the time. I wondered about many things, about the bath upstairs, about the tea lights on the counter, about the lamp on the floor. But mostly, I wondered about the time.

"Cosima, I—"

"Don't marry her," she said, cutting me off.

Our eyes met. I bit my lip. Her tears threatened to spill over at any minute.

"You're mine," she said. "I just know it."

There it was, the tenderness and the earnest plea. I knew it was coming, perhaps had hoped for it all along. But in the face of her plea I was speechless.

"What we have is so good," she continued. "So, so good."

"Yes," I said, looking away. "But I have something good here, too—with Melanie. It's just a different kind of good."

"How can you say that? What about the snowballs?"

"The snowballs?"

* * *

 _The Mission District apartment. The enormous bed. Her halted breath as she listens. Her smile in the dark._

 _I blush and I speak._

" _I just wanted to talk to you. And then after I talked to you, I wanted to see you again. It was like a snowball, I guess. Once I made that first push, it just started rolling down the hill, you know?"_

 _"Hmm," she buzzes. "Like a snowball."_

 _"Maybe that is what people are talking about. Maybe you don't actually fall in love at first sight, but you feel a spark, a desire to set things in motion."_

 _"Yeah, that sounds about right."_

 _"And, then, if you are lucky, and things go your way, the other person has also been rolling their own snowball with you. And, then, you find yourselves at the bottom of the hill with two big snowballs, and you think, oh my god, we are in love."_

 _Giggles in the dark. Kisses and embraces in the dark._

* * *

"Yeah, you said our love was like rolling snowballs," she said.

"I know what I said."

"Well, where did it go? Where did yours go?"

"Cosima, I—"

But she cut me off, covering my mouth with her hand, muffling my voice back into my mouth. She stood absolutely still. At first I was angry, but when I saw her frightened, alert face, I was scared.

We both listened.

Footsteps up the front stoop. Footsteps and laughter and jiggling keys.

I pushed Cosima away.

"Hide!"

She ducked into the dark kitchen as I picked up the lamp and set it messily on the table. I pulled my robe closed just as Melanie pushed open the door. When she saw me she smiled.

"Cherie!" she shouted with raised arms.

She fell onto me in a clumsy hug.

"I missed you!" she said too loudly into my ear. "I missed you at the party!"

"How many drinks did you have?" I said, closing the door.

"I don't know! I lost count!"

"Lost count? What time is it?"

"It's only eleven, cherie," she said, taking off her heels and dumping them onto the floor. "I said I have to be home in time for my beauty rest."

She looked up then. She stepped toward me. She touched my face.

"Cherie!" she whispered. "You look so beautiful right now! What have you been doing?"

"Ehm, I was about to take a bath."

"Oh! That's a lovely idea! Maybe I'll join you, but first! First! I need a snack! I'm starving!"

She made for the kitchen but I blocked her way.

"Ehm, why don't you go first. I'll bring something nice for you."

She smiled and pulled at the front of my robe.

"Something nice, like what?"

"Just something nice."

"On second thought, let's skip the food. Come with me."

"Melanie—"

"Come. With. Me."

She pulled me by the front of my robe, and I relented. The last thing I wanted to do was make a scene. I followed her down the hall. I resisted her kisses, but she kissed my cheeks anyway.

I followed her into the bedroom, where she pulled me toward the bed.

She fell back heavily, letting go of my robe. I stood with her for a moment.

"How many drinks did you say you had?"

"I don't know. Four or five."

"Four or five?!"

"It's not a big deal."

"Well, would you like a glass of water? Let me bring you a glass of water," I said, backing slowly away.

She grunted and closed her eyes.

I hurried to the kitchen, only to find it empty.

"Merde!" I whispered.

I ran to the front door. Cosima had left it cracked open on her way out. I stepped outside. I looked up the street and down, but there was no sign of her.

I closed the door, turned off the light, and returned to the bedroom.

It was only when I saw Melanie passed out on the bed, that I realized I had forgotten her water. I filled a cup at the bathroom sink.

I let out the bath water. I blew out the candles. I walked to the bed.

I set the water on Melanie's nightstand, and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. Then I crossed to my own side of the bed, and laid down with my bathrobe still on.

I laid with my back to Melanie. In less than 24 hours we were supposed to get married. I stared at the clock because I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep because I couldn't get Cosima's question out of my mind.

 _What about the snowballs?_ she had said. _Where did yours go?_

It was a very good question. A very, very good one. I wasn't sure if I had an answer.

One doesn't just lose a snowball all at once. Just as one doesn't lose love all at once.

If I was supposed to understand what had happened to my love—to our love—then I would have to go back, retrace the path, pick up the fragments, and put them back together.

If I was to make an honest decision, then I had to roll my snowball backwards, back up the hill and see for myself if it could be saved.

I stared at the clock. I had about thirteen hours…

Thirteen hours to figure out if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.


	3. Chapter 3

**I remember the first time I saw her.**

I remember her height; she towered over the school group. I remember her smile; she tilted her head, both confused and curious. I remember her eyes; they locked on me and sent my heart pounding.

Full disclosure...I thought she had me confused with someone else. But there was no one else, and as the school group moved on, and she moved closer, my assumption was quickly disproved.

After all, what were the odds?

What were the odds that this woman—this tall, intelligent, French woman—would cast her attention in my direction, would seek me out as an object of affection?

What were the odds?

But I suppose odds have nothing to do with love. There is no rule, there is no law, there is no science, only the acceptance of chaos.

And so, even from then, from the first time we spoke, I knew…I had done nothing to deserve her.

Our meeting had been unlikely, our attraction even more so, and the probability that we would start a long term relationship? It seemed almost unbearably remote.

 **I remember the day she left.**

I thought the numb feeling in my gut was a symptom of relief. I thought I was finally rid of the anxiety, of the fear that she _would_ leave. I thought my days of wondering at the odds were finally over.

It was a strange sort of relief though, as if I had cut off an entire arm to wipe out the possibility of paper cuts.

 **I remember many days in between.**

They filled the space between her arrival and her departure; days of sunshine, days of rain, days of sleep, days of coffee, days of books, papers and dirty dishes, days of new shoes and old shirts, days of morning fog, days of setting stars, days of laughter and days of quiet.

 **I forgot many days, too—forgetfulness being a byproduct of domesticity.**

And let's not even bring up the days I missed completely, the days when I was far away, doing research, crawling on my hands and knees on the damp forest floor of the Amazonian mountains.

Those days—those weeks—stretched on, and I can never know what she did then, or how she felt, or what she looked like, or who she talked to. I can't know how she passed her time; alone in the apartment, or out on the town. I always imagined her as a busy body, her days full with lunch appointments, long lectures, and office hours.

I had constructed these memories of her. I realize that now. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

 **I remember the day she arrived in San Francisco.**

I found her asleep on my bed. She had let herself into my apartment—our apartment—because I had been held up at school.

She had laid herself out, face down and arms spread wide. She snored lightly, not stirring when I entered the room.

I stood in the doorway. I watched her ribs rise and fall. I counted the seconds between breaths. I noticed the length of her limbs in comparison to the length of my bed.

 _A perfect fit_ , I thought.

I smelled shampoo and bodywash on the air, and I knew that she had used my shower and my towel, maybe even my razor against her skin.

I stepped to the bed. I sat on the edge. I pulled the thick duvet away from her face, only to reveal a bare shoulder, a bare neck, a bare breast. And still, she didn't stir.

I wondered how long she had been waiting for me before she gave in to her jetlag induced exhaustion.

Her damp curls left dark spots on the pillow. I brushed them from her face and leaned close enough to kiss her ear.

"Are you awake?" I whispered.

She rolled into my arms and her hair spilled across her face, revealing a rosy cheek, a soft scowl, a scrunched up nose and a half-opened eye. But then her face disappeared against my cheek. She hugged me with what little strength she had in her tired arms.

"Oui," she mumbled.

"Are you sure?"

She looked up. She blinked with heavy eyelids, then her eyes went wide.

"Yes!" she said, laughing and hiding her face again.

"What's so funny?"

She peeked out at me from behind the pillow, her eyes smiling and glistening with tears.

"What's so funny?" I said again.

I reached beneath the blanket. I found her naked arm. I wrapped my fingers around it, grabbing her flesh, perhaps too hard, but she didn't pull away. I had a great need to touch her, to hold her still, to test her physicality against my own.

And what a delight it was!

 _Yes, you are solid. Yes, you are here._

"Non," she said. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

In their delight, my fingers found her ribs and the underside of her arm. They moved quickly over her skin, tickling here and touching there. She squirmed and pushed away from me, until finally, I relented, and she was left bare from the midriff up.

My eyes landed on her exposed breasts, which bounced with little giggles. She watched my mouth, then pulled the blanket up shyly.

I reached a hand out. I stopped her.

"No," I said. "No, don't."

She laughed again, pulling harder on the blanket. I could not help but laugh with her.

"What's so funny?" I asked again.

I climbed over her, pushing her hands up over her head, pinning them on the pillow and pulling the blanket down to her waist. She giggled beneath me, her hips curling under, her stomach flexing with joy. With her eyes closed, she turned her head to the side, exposing her long neck.

I moved my hand down, suddenly filled with a perverse desire to wrap my fingers around her neck, to feel it in my palm just as I had felt her arm.

I did this gently—slowly. I ran my thumb under her chin and up over her mouth. She turned her face into my hand, until we were eye to eye.

"What's so…"

But her eyes were serious and soft, her mouth turned down against her will.

"...funny?"

"Nothing," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. "It's just exhaustion...and relief."

She pulled me down to her chest then, holding my face against her bare skin. I knew that I should be quiet and still, but her fingertips moved over the back of my neck, and her nipple stiffened against my cheek, and when I blinked, I heard the sound of eyelashes against flesh.

 _Relief._

"I'm happy," she said.

"Me, too."

 _And scared._

 **I remember how it felt, to push inside her.**

It was my tongue first, pushed deep into her mouth until she moaned and spread her legs. Yes, she spread her legs as she tilted her head back, her mouth pressed against mine, waiting for me to taste her again.

I remember how easy it was, to slip right between her legs, to align my hips with her hips, to fall into a rhythm, though it had been so long since I had seen her.

Exhausted from her travels, she was content to lay back against the pillows. But she wrapped her arms around my back, her hands drifting up my neck and down my spine.

I was exhausted, too, but that didn't stop me from pulling my own dress off over my own head, or from kicking my nylons away in a few graceless gestures. That didn't stop me from crawling right over her, hovering there long enough for her to take my breast into her mouth, then settling my hips down once more between her legs.

We kissed—several long, hungry kisses—kisses that we had collected and carried around like souvenirs since the last time our lips met. I gave her soft kisses, melancholy kisses, kisses that filled the silence. She gave me wet kisses, sloppy kisses, kisses like little invitations to fill the space.

And in between these kisses, our hips moved. She pulled her legs up suddenly, tilting her pelvis forward, until...there! I felt her—wet and throbbing—right against the front of my own crotch. The sensation was enough to send me forward in one quick, deep thrust.

She gasped. So did I. I think we were both surprised.

I had spent months thinking that I knew her, that I knew what she wanted, what pleased her, what got her off. And here we were, the first night back together, and already we had stumbled into something new. The discovery aroused me.

I pulled my hips away, then thrust against her once more, certain that I was hitting her right where she liked it, right against her clit. She gasped again.

But then...she reached down, grabbed my ass, and pulled me toward her.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

And I did...I did.

I kissed her again and again—with my mouth, with my body, with my hips—until she shivered beneath me, digging her nails into my back and sighing.

I could not take the sound of it anymore. I leaned back onto my knees. I reached over to the lamp. I fumbled to turn it on.

The light filled the room—a sleepy, romantic light.

She covered her eyes with her arm, and peeped out at me.

"What are you doing? Why did you turn the light on?"

"I wanted to see you."

And it was true, I wanted to see her, not just her shadows, but the opposite of her shadows, too.

I wanted to see her skin, lucid and bright in the light. I wanted to see her lips, pink from my love, and her cheeks, pink from her passion. I wanted to see her nipples, erect from arousal, and the goosebumps that crawled across her abdomen—little trails that hinted at her inner sensations, little trails that I followed with my fingertips.

I leaned over her. I took a nipple into my mouth. She tilted back into the pillows, even as she arched her back, pressing, pressing into me, and pulling my head down with both hands.

My hand traced her trails, all the way down past her navel, all the way down to her coarse hair. I paused there for a moment, noticing the rise of her pelvis, pressing my palm down against the soft flesh just above her pubic bone.

This, too, she pushed up toward me.

I didn't hesitate. I let my fingers slide down, down.

What I found...it raked a groan from my mouth.

"You're wet," I said.

"Yes."

"You came already?"

"Yes."

Another groan, another rush.

I leaned back, dizzy when I looked down at her. Her eyelids were heavy with pleasure. Her thighs were red from our previous rhythm. I spread her legs wide so that I could see her clearly. She watched and bit her lips expectantly.

In the soft light, I saw her wetness. I saw the shadow and the sparkle.

 **I remember how it felt to push inside her.**

To fall over her. To move above her, inside her—inside. And at the same time, to expand. Dizzy with desire, my hands moved on their own. And my mouth, dipping down. Taste and touch. Taste and touch. Until my face and fingers were covered in her love.

 **I remember the rough. I remember the smooth.**

But these things blend together in retrospect.

Just like the days. Just like the months and moments that spin around in my mind. And the spinning—it never stops, because the only time I was ever still was when she held me in her gaze.

Yes, I remember her eyes, closed and turned away in pleasure, or sometimes turned away in sorrow. I remember grasping at her arms, sometimes in lust, sometimes in desperation. I remember her back as she lay face down on the bed. I remember her back as she walked out the door.

 **I remember the shadows, and I remember their opposite.**

But most of all, I remember the way she slept that night, her face pressed against the pillow, her cheeks soft and her mouth relaxed with the bottom lip turned out, just like a child's. I remember the way she slept, like she had never known anxiety, like she never would again.

I remember laying next to her, my nose close to her nose, my hand wrapped around her hand.

Most of all, I remember the relief. I thought it would last forever—that momentary peace.

 **I guess I was naive.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Smiling at Nothing.**

My mother was a Buddhist. I'd often wake to the smell of incense, walk down the stairs and find her sitting cross-legged on the livingroom floor, her hands on her knees, her head held high, her eyes closed against the morning sun, her smile so small it was almost imperceptible.

But she _was_ smiling, almost always.

"What do you think about when you meditate?" I asked her once.

"Well, I don't think about much of anything," she said.

"Then why do you smile?"

"Do I?"

"Yes."

"Then I suppose I am smiling at nothing."

This answer was highly unsatisfactory to me as a child.

I would lay awake at night thinking about the nothingness, which I could only perceive as an emptiness, as a darkness, as an absence like a black hole.

Those nights—the nothing nights—I would slip from my own bed and tiptoe to my mother's room. Sometimes, it was enough to stand in the doorway, to see her laying in her own bed, to hear her breathe—a constant in and out. Then I would return to my own room and lie down, still hearing the rhythm of her breath, which I imagined was the rhythm of her smile.

Other nights though, the nothingness was too real, as if it had form, as if it stood right over my shoulder, scheming like a boogieman ready to drag me off to a secluded place.

On those nights, I'd push open the door and hurry to my mother's bed. I'd slip under the covers quietly and inch close to her side. She often laid on her back, her hands crossed over her chest. I would lift myself up, gaze at her face in the dark, wait for my eyes to adjust, wait for the moment when I'd see the little curve of her mouth and know—

 _Smiling at nothing._

Then I'd settle down next to her, careful not to wake her, but careful to keep my feet tucked up close, so that all of me was within the circumference of her smile, as if there were a perimeter of protection—the only thing between me and the nothing.

* * *

The morning after Delphine arrived in San Francisco, I woke to the smell of coffee. I found her at the kitchen table with her legs kicked up and stretched out. She held a mug in one hand and her phone in the other. Steam rose up from her mug, catching the late morning light and giving it shape, if only for a moment.

I was struck by a "just-so" feeling. I stood in the doorway, my arms crossed over my full heart.

 _This is exactly what I wanted._

My heart beat a little faster.

 _This is everything._

And a little faster, still.

I was scared to move, scared to breathe, scared to make a sound and have her look up. Though if she did look up, I knew she would smile and blush.

What was I so afraid of?

 _This is everything,_ I thought again, _and I'm going to mess it up._

Suddenly, the everything was too overwhelming, just as the nothing had been when I was a child.

But, whereas the nothing had been something dark just over my shoulder—something felt but never seen—the everything was right there before me, glowing in the late morning light, like a mirage of water that could fool you into thirst but could never really be drunk.

I tried to brush the thought away, even as Delphine brushed a curl from her brow.

I felt an anxiety well up, a reluctance to enter the scene for fear that I'd mess it up somehow. But I could not stand in the doorway forever, and so, I threw myself forward, leaping into the lovely stillness of that moment like a child leaps into the stillness of a day-old rain puddle.

"Look what I still have!" I said, crossing the kitchen to the refrigerator.

She flinched at the sound of my voice, and nearly fell back in her chair, but I pressed forward, reaching as I went, until I wrapped my eager fingers around the neck of a wine bottle.

"The Alpha Omega!" I said, turning on my heel to finally face her.

I clenched the bottle close to my chest.

"Bonjour, Cosima," she said, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh, uh...bonjour."

I turned away from her and pulled down two glasses from the cupboard.

"Did you sleep well?" I said.

"Oui, very well."

She stood up behind me. I heard the chair squeak beneath her weight. She approached me slowly, and I pretended not to notice as I rummaged through several drawers in search of the corkscrew.

"Where is that thing—ah!—here it is…"

I had just set about removing the foil from the top of the bottle when I felt her reach around me.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she said.

Her hands slid down my arms in slow, deliberate strokes, and the strokes sent shivers down my center, over my skin, across my shoulders and down past my shins. Then her fingers covered mine, gentle but still, until we both gripped the wine bottle, our fingers intertwined around the neck, her body pressed up against my back, and her mouth pressed against my temple.

"Of course," I said, leaning back into her.

I felt her breasts—soft and warm—against my shoulder blades. I felt her hips—sharp and intentional—against the low curve of my spine.

"It was our promise, remember? We said we'd save until we met again. We should have opened it last night."

"But it's not even noon," she said. "We haven't even had breakfast."

"Well," I said, "let me introduce you to a staple of San Francisco cuisine…"

"Uh-huh?"

"Brunch!" I said with an enthusiastic shrug of my shoulders.

"I know what brunch is, Cosima."

"Good! Then you also know that it's just like breakfast—but with alcohol!"

"Non. It's no good."

"No good?"

"Non. In Paris it isn't authentic American brunch unless there are pancakes."

"Pancakes?"

"M-hmm."

"Is this a bad time to mention that I don't cook?"

"You might…" she said, kissing my temple, sliding her hands back up the length of my arms, until she wrapped her hands around chest.

"I might?"

"Oui, you might...after a glass of wine."

She kissed my head and pulled away. She giggled as she headed for the table. A chill spread across my back in her absence, but I could not turn around.

I fumbled a little longer with the foil wrapper, then dug the corkscrew right into the cork, twisting, twisting with anticipation, as if this were it—the final consummation of our present moment. She was really here—in San Francisco, with me—for good…

 _Good-ish?_

I poured the wine, and with each _glug, glug_ that slopped out of the bottle, I felt my anxiety glug away as well. And when the two glasses were full, I carried them to the table.

She sat and I stood. She reached for my waist and pulled me toward her. She laid a kiss on my exposed stomach, then looked up as I slipped the glass into her hand.

"So, I guess this is it," I said. "You finally made it—"

" _We_ finally made it."

"We? I didn't do anything."

"You invited me here, Cosima...into your home, into your private spaces, into your life. That is a lot. I mean, you hardly know me."

She raised her glass.

"Well, when you put it that way...you hardly know me, either."

"Mais je t'aime."

"And I love you."

She sighed as if relieved.

"Here's to loving strangers," she said with a smile.

"Right."

We both drank, our eyes locked on each other's until the last moment, when I could bare her gaze no longer. I looked away.

I don't exactly know why I looked away. Perhaps it was that little bit of doubt, the little whispering voice that said, _If she knew you, she wouldn't be so quick to love you._

I gulped it down and shook it off, and by the end of the bottle, when we made our very last toast, when we drank the very last drop, she looked at me with all of her love, and I looked back, smiling with all of my heart, completely convinced that she loved me—that she knew me and loved me.

By the end of the bottle—she had been right—I had discovered a passion for cooking.

In fact, I was right in the middle of whisking the pancake batter when I heard my phone vibrating from the other room.

"Can you get that?" I said with my hands full.

"D'accord," she said, slipping away for a moment, my robe trailing behind her. And when she returned. "Who is Scott?"

"Oh, shit!" I said, dropping the bowl of batter.

I reached for the phone.

"What?" she said. "What is it?"

"What time is it? Oh, shit!"

"What time is it? I don't know? It's almost noon."

"Noon, right! Fuck! I forgot! Fuck!"

I hurried to the bedroom and she trailed behind.

"Cosima, what is it?"

I pulled a t-shirt dress over my head, not even bothering with the leggings.

"I have a meeting with my professor—God! I completely forgot," I said.

"With your professor? When?"

I checked my face in the mirror, smudging the eyeliner in the corner of my eye to make it look a little more effortlessly intentional.

"Like twenty minutes ago! Jesus! What is wrong with me?"

I headed for the front door and picked up my bag.

"A meeting about what?" she said, pulling open the door for me.

"Sorry! I forgot to tell you. I mean, I saw you on the bed last night, and I was just so distracted, but it's all good!"

I kissed her cheek.

"It's all good," I continued. "It's the chance of a lifetime, really. I might go to Brazil!"

"Go to Brazil? When? For what?"

"For a study! We are looking for frogs—an undiscovered species! It's the chance of a lifetime. I'll download all the details when I get back."

"And when is that?"

"I don't know," I said. "Shouldn't be too late. There is leftover Chinese in the fridge. Or if you want, there is cash in my dresser. Just take what you need. Make yourself comfortable."

I kissed her again.

"Sorry," I said. "Sorry. I'll make it up to you."

"It's okay," she said, leaning against the door frame. "Kind of always late, right?"

"Right," I said, hurrying towards the stairs. "Right."

"Maybe that's why you were smiling in your sleep," she called after me.

I paused on the stairs, turning to look back up at her.

"What?"

"This morning...you were smiling in your sleep. Now I know why."

I ran back up the stairs and pulled her into my arms. I kissed her cheek.

"Don't be silly," I whispered. "I was smiling because you were next to me."

"I'm not so sure."

"Oh no?"

"No."

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know, something about inguinal amplexus…"

 _Inguinal amplexus?_ I thought. _A mating strategy?_

"I did not say that in my sleep."

"You did."

I wrapped my hands around her waist.

"Well, I still could've been talking about you."

She kissed me once and pushed my hands away. "Aren't you late?"

* * *

I can't tell you if I really smiled in my sleep that night, or if I ever did it again in all the nights that we spent together.

But I can tell you how hard things got—at night, in the dark—surrounded by the nothing on all those nothing nights after she left. I can tell you about the wanting and the regret.

I wanted my everything back.


	5. Chapter 5

**No mud, no lotus.**

I sifted through the leaves, careful in my step, kneeling down, my hands outstretched. I set the mulch in the center of my palm and pushed it around with my dirty fingertip.

I knew what I was looking for; a toad, tiny, no bigger than the tip of my thumb.

I knew the chances of finding it were slim, but I kept my head down despite the ache in my neck. I kept my hands outstretched, constantly sifting, sifting through the damp mulch. My skin was damp; my forehead, my back, my feet in their boots. But most of all, my hands, which were shriveled with moisture.

But everything is damp in the cloud forests of Brazil—everything is isolated. And so, I found myself, too, damp and isolated at the end of the day, barely able to see the pile of mulch in my hand clearly, not just because the sun had already started to set, but because my eyes were filled with sweat.

I heard footsteps not far off.

The beam of a flashlight landed square on my soggy palm.

"Cosima, it's time to turn in for the night."

"Just a minute, Scott. I've got a good feeling about this."

"It's no good with no light," he called back. "Try again in the morning."

"Just hold the flashlight, would you?"

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my arm and reached for another pile of mulch, but before I could pick it up, I froze.

I saw it, a tiny, yellow, three-toed foot poking out from beneath a rotting leaf. It glistened beneath the beam of Scott's flashlight.

My knees ached under my own weight, but I held still, scared to even pull my arm back.

"Scott," I whispered. "Don't move that light."

Slowly, quietly, I retracted my arm.

"Cosima, I'm hungry and I've got a serious case of swampass—"

"Scott, please..."

I took my camera up into my hands, suppressing my own smile, afraid it would scare away the little specimen that sat in front of me.

"Oh my god, Cosima!" he whispered. "Do you have something?"

I didn't answer him.

Instead, with the camera held before me, I grabbed up a twig. I glanced in Scott's direction. He nodded his head eagerly, as if egging me on.

I held my breath. I reached my hand out. I nudged the leaf, as gently as I could, but the thing was so rotten that it stuck to the end of the twig, shredding as I pushed it aside. I changed my strategy, twisting the twig as I went until the leaf had wrapped itself around the tip. And there below…

Not just one tiny yellow toad with little three-toed feet—but two.

They were stacked upon each other. I had caught them right in the middle of mating.

"Sorry, guys," I whispered as I clicked my photos.

Their black eyes barely blinked back in response. After snapping my photos, I stepped away slowly, until I found myself by Scott's side.

I was hypnotized, looking down at the camera LCD, seeing the image there and hardly believing it.

For a moment, I was struck with a deep, morose deflation.

 _All of this_ , I thought, _all of this searching, and now I have proof, now I have the photograph._

* * *

" _Cosima, hold still!"_

" _No! No way!"_

 _I hold one hand over my face, and cross the other over my chest, clutching the five-dollar coffee close without ever letting the straw slip from my lips. I slurp and smile even as I hide half-heartedly from her camera lens._

 _She holds her phone up in front of her, a fake pout on her mouth that I can't see, but that I can hear in her laugh._

" _Come on, you look beautiful."_

" _I look awful, and you're an awful liar."_

 _She rubs her foot against mine beneath the table. I spread my fingers wide to take a peak. The passers-by behind her pay no mind; not to us, and not to the beautiful day._

 _I hear the synthetic click of her camera phone, over and over, as she snatches handfuls of photos, each one more candid than the last, each one catching my smile, my surprise, my disbelief at her presence, my happiness—and maybe one or two, my fear._

 _I wonder if she knows._

" _Delete those, immediately," I say._

" _Non," she says. "Non. Now I have proof."_

" _Proof of what?"_

" _Just proof."_

" _Proof of what?"_

" _Your existence. Your presence."_

" _What does that mean?"_

" _That means, I'm pretty tired of telling people at work that my girlfriend is out of town. They are starting to think that I've made you up."_

" _You're exaggerating."_

" _Non, I don't even have pictures of us—of you—that aren't from Paris."_

" _No way."_

" _You left before I could take any, and then you left again."_

" _I'm sure we took some."_

" _No, we didn't."_

" _Well, I took tons of mental pictures—like, tons—like so many good memories right up here…"_

 _I point to my head._

" _...and here."_

 _I point to my heart._

 _She leans toward me. She places her hand over my own and kisses my cheek._

" _That's very romantic, Cosima," she says. "But I want them here."_

 _She taps on her phone and winks before leaning in with her arm outstretched. She kisses my cheek before clicking another selfie._

* * *

"Proof of what?" Scott asked.

I heard his voice like an echo, delayed and distant, as if he was far off and not right by my side.

"Cosima? Proof of what?"

I turned toward him, but behind his flashlight, he was only another shadow amongst a forest of shadows.

"Cosima?"

"Oh, uh...of the toads, that they exist...that we aren't on a fool's errand."

"Of course, they exist."

"No, but, like, now we can share it with the world. Like, now we have proof that we aren't just a bunch of mad scientists digging around in the mud, chasing after fabled creatures...that it was all worth it."

"Well, of course, it was worth it! You might even get to name this little beauty."

"Yeah…"

"What would you name it— _hypothetically—_ if you could?"

" _Brachycephalus delphineus,_ " I said softly.

I had hoped he would miss the meaning, but instead he looked my way, stopping in the middle of the dark forest and flashing his light into my eyes.

"How are...things? With Delphine?"

I sighed and pushed his flashlight away.

"That bad, huh?"

"Do you think naming a new species after someone is an acceptable makeup gift?" I asked.

"Well, I mean, I'm no expert, but it couldn't hurt."

"Yeah, it couldn't hurt."

 _But it does hurt. I do hurt. She does, too._

"Have you guys spoken? I mean, since you arrived?"

"No. She keeps missing my calls."

"Well, maybe it's the time difference? You both have crazy hours—you with the toad hunt, and her with the professorship."

"Right."

"I'm sure things will work out. Just give her time."

* * *

" _Just give me more time," I say._

 _Standing on opposite sides of the table, the lamp lights the space between us._

" _Time? It's not about time, Cosima."_

 _The window over the sink is open. People laugh outside. A car drives by, casting a momentary flash and shadow across her face._

 _Carefully, I press on, not sure if I'm jumping into a puddle or sinkhole—not sure if I care which it is._

" _Then what is it about?" I say._

" _I don't know. It's about presence. It's about connection."_

" _I am present...right now...right here."_

" _Yes, physically."_

 _Her tone is sharp, her expression sarcastic; hints of the depth of her thoughts._

" _What's that supposed to mean?" I say._

" _That means, yes, you are here—your body is here. Sometimes, you even look at me or nod your head when I speak, but your mind…"_

 _She looks away, her jaw slack with embarrassment and exasperation._

 _I reach for her hand, but I don't ask her to explain. I don't have to. I already know._

" _Things will get better. This is the last trip—"_

" _Until you find more funding."_

" _No," I say. "This is it. This is the last one for me. If that's what you want—"_

" _Non, non," she says, waving her hands in the air. "This isn't about what I want."_

" _Then what is it about?!"_

 _Even as the words leave my mouth, I know they are too loud. They bring a light to her eyes and a fire to her cheeks. She clenches her jaw, takes a step back and crosses her arms, her pose rigid and unmoving._

" _Look," she starts quietly, "I'm not interested in trying to change you. I'm not interested in changing your mind or your personality or your passions. I'm simply stating that I miss you. I did not mean for my expression to be such a burden on you, but I still had to express it, and now that you know, you can do what you want with the information—"_

" _But isn't that what you want? Don't you want me to say that I won't go?"_

" _Of course, that's what I want—!"_

" _That I'll stay and prove that I want to be with you? That you are more important than my career?"_

"— _but I'm not naive! I would never ask you to give up such an opportunity."_

" _Wouldn't you?" I say._

 _The question brings me instant gratification and instant regret._

" _Excuse me?" she says, taking another step back._

" _I mean, isn't that what you did, in Paris? Isn't that what this is about?"_

 _Her jaw, once clenched, now falls open._

" _Well, now I'm not so sure what this is about," she says. "Please...inform me."_

" _You gave up a pretty big opportunity for me by not going to Kenya, and now I won't do the same for you."_

 _Her face drains of color. She closes her mouth and takes a deep breath, turning away, heading for the front door._

" _Where are you—?"_

" _Those are your words, Cosima!" she says, not looking back._

 _She grabs her coat and yanks it on before jerking open the door._

" _You can't just walk away—"_

 _Finally she faces me, jabbing an angry finger in my direction. But before she speaks, her finger falls, just slightly._

" _Your words," she says. "Not mine."_

 _She touches her own chest. Her face is a contortion of suppressed tears. She shakes her head back and forth, and I find myself shaking my head with her._

" _Your words, not mine," she repeats—no louder than a murmur—before making her final exit._

* * *

The nights in the cloud forest were dark and restless. I never got used to the sounds; the rhythm of the insects, the rhythm of the night birds. There was never a moment's silence. I never got used to the feel, either; the heat, the humidity that stuck to my eyelids, the tickling of flies—imagined or real—moving over my skin.

And so, even though I laid still on my cot, the activity of the forest carried on all around me.

I reached for the camera in the dark.

I turned the thing on, and was momentarily blinded by the electric blue glow of the viewscreen.

I rubbed at my sticky eyelids.

But when I opened my eyes again, there it was, the picture that would change the world—well, at least a little bit.

It was a new species, as yet unnamed, that was similar to its tiny cousins in many ways, but also different. It was a victory for biodiversity and a miracle of isolation.

I thought of the originals, the common ancestor, the brave little toad that left the valleys below and climbed the steep mountains to settle in the cloud forests, and to separate for eternity from their brethren on the valley floors.

 _But no,_ I thought, _it was not one single, brave, little toad._

I scrolled through the photos I had taken. I made mental note of the mating position, in which the male held the female by the waist.

 _It was not alone._

Scott shifted noisily in his sleep, so I turned off the screen. I set the camera aside, rolled onto my back and sighed.

 _Who am I kidding?_ I thought. _This discovery won't change anything. It will barely even make a dent on the wikipedia page._

I could not help but reach for my phone, hoping through some small miracle that there would be a message there, and that my own self-imposed isolation would be over.

The screen was blank.

As I swiped my thumb over it, I noticed the dirt beneath my fingernails, caked and black. The mud of the forest floor had left dark stains in the skin of my cuticles that I couldn't wash off, not even with water.

* * *

 _The room is dark and too quiet since she walked out. But I lay in bed anyway, because I don't know what else to do… where else to go._

 _The front door opens—and closes. She enters the room in silence, undresses in silence, slips into the bed—never saying a word._

 _I shake next to her, holding my breath, holding my words. I shake with all the things I want to say, but I hold the words that might make this wound worse._

 _She sighs and turns onto her side._

" _Aren't you going to say something?" she says._

 _I think this is a trap._

" _What should I say?"_

" _I don't know," she says and shifts in the dark._

" _I don't know, either, but I don't want to leave like this."_

" _Oui," she says. "Let's just sleep."_

 _We agree on this, but we don't sleep. Instead she slips a hand over my wrist, and up over my arm. She squeezes me once, and that is enough._

 _I turn toward her. Our lips nearly touch in the dark. I shake and shake, unable to speak. She sighs—her breath hot on my face—before she inches forward in the dark._

 _I think I reach for her. I think she pulls me in. I think our lips touch first._

 _Either way, she rolls me onto my back. She blankets me with her body. Her hair cascades down the side of my face, as my fingers travel the length of her arms._

 _Her kisses are long. Her lips are soft. Her hands cup my face, and then my neck._

" _Je t'aime," she whispers._

 _Her words ignite me. I roll her onto her back, I raise myself above her. I pull her t-shirt up. She arches her back and raises her arms, and the t-shirt is gone. I fall to her chest, pressing my lips against her breast before turning my cheek toward her skin, before pressing my ear to her heart._

 _I listen._

 _She grabs at my hair. She grinds her hips up against my belly. She wraps her arms around her shoulders and pauses._

 _We stay like that, me with my ear to her chest and her with her arms clutched around my back._

 _I hear her heartbeat over the heavy in and out of her breath._

" _I will miss you," she whispers. "I always do."_

" _Me, too," I say._

" _I didn't expect this to be so hard."_

 _I should have said something supportive, like 'Me, too,' or 'Everything will be okay,' but that isn't what I said._

 _I don't know why. Maybe it was the darkness. Maybe it was the threat of the nothing; I felt it all around us, waiting on the periphery of our embrace._

" _No mud, no lotus," I whisper back._

" _What?"_

" _No mud, no lotus," I say again. "It's something my mother used to say."_

" _Your mother?"_

" _She used to say that you cannot grow a lotus without mud."_

" _Do you believe that?"_

" _I don't know. It's just something she used to say… Maybe this is our mud."_

" _Maybe," she says._

" _Delphine?"_

" _Hmm?"_

" _Do you remember the snowballs?"_

 _I hear her smile in the dark. She squeezes me again._

" _Oui."_

" _Do you think our snowballs have already started melting?" I ask._

 _She is quiet for a long time, so quiet that I can hear her blink, again and again._

" _Perhaps," she starts, but then she pauses. "Perhaps the snowball is only the beginning."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Perhaps that is only the falling in love—the mutual attraction."_

" _Okay…"_

" _We said, ourselves, that snowballs never last. That's part of their beauty, right? But what's left, then? After the snowball has melted?"_

" _Mud," I whisper._

" _Mud… Maybe your mother was right. Maybe you were right. Maybe this is our mud—"_

" _And we are just waiting on a lotus," I say, finishing the thought._

 _We make love, but it is the sad kind, full of slow strokes, long embraces, and deep, penetrating stares into each other's eyes. But these stares offer no more answers than our words can. Still, we move, our bodies press and express what eyes and tongues can't. We declare our commitment upon each other's limbs, and when it's over, when it's the end, we lay conquered and covered in our own mud, but hopeful._

" _How long does it usually take?" she whispers close to my ear._

" _For what?"_

" _For a lotus to grow?"_

 _By the time the sun rises, and I rise with it, I still haven't found an answer for her. And as I look down upon her sleeping face before I walk out the door, I suppose she has given up waiting for it._


	6. Chapter 6

_The Fairgrounds_

* * *

Every relationship has its own patterns.

Some have soaring highs and sickening lows, like roaring roller coasters that leave you breathless or in tears. Others turn and turn and turn, their momentum so great, that they leave you dazed and confused, stuck to the wall as the world flies by before your eyes.

And still others are a slow climb and a slow descent, rotating like a great Ferris wheel over the landscape of years, but never offering the ecstasy of the fall.

I thought I knew which one I wanted.

* * *

" _Come on, come on!" she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me back toward the front of the line. "Let's ride it again!"_

" _Non, non, Cosima," I say. "Once is enough."_

" _Once is never enough!" she says._

 _But my pout and my hand on my forehead is enough to convince her._

" _Okay, then what about the rollercoaster?" she says, pointing to the rickety red tracks that tower over the rest of the fairgrounds._

" _Non, non," I say. "I think I've had enough. Can't we do something easy?"_

 _She slides in close, slipping her hands into the warmth of my coat._

" _Something easy?" She smirks to herself. "I was saving that part of your present until later tonight, but…"_

" _Cosima, I'm being serious."_

" _Okay, okay." She shrugs. Her cheeks are cold and red, and when she speaks I can see her breath. "Something easy...like what?"_

" _Like…"_

 _I glance around at all the attractions; the House of Mirrors, the Gravity Drop, the Carousel, the game vendors, the beer vendors, the hotdog and popcorn carts. And there, in the distance, the slow and inviting…_

" _The Ferris Wheel?" I say._

" _The Ferris Wheel?"_

" _Oui. It's a lovely evening, and I'm sure there is a lovely view of the sunset."_

" _I'm sure you are right," she says. "But once we are up there, I'm not sure I'll be paying much attention to the sunset."_

" _You have a one-track mind tonight, Cosima."_

 _She leans in. She places her hand on my hip and guides me through the crowd. She leans up and whispers in my ear, "You have no idea."_

 _She is right; I have no idea._

 _But how can I?_

 _As we sit down in our seat, as the wheel moves backward and up, slowly and steadily, as Cosima moves my hand along the top of her bare thigh, how can I guess what she has in mind?_

 _I expect hand holding. I expect cuddles and kisses. I even expect a few risque words, fantasies whispered into my ear as the sun sets over the Pacific._

 _She holds my hand still until we reach the pinnacle of the ride. Our car swings gently at the top of the wheel. The wind moves past our ears and sends goosebumps up on our flesh. And that is the moment when she moves my hand further up._

 _I smirk as my fingers slip beneath her skirt. I think I know what is on the horizon; a wet and aroused Cosima—perhaps she is even panty-less._

 _But I am wrong._

 _She is wearing panties. And more._

 _She presses my hand through her skirt, forcing me to grab at the hard bulge beneath her underwear. I recognize the shape of it right away._

 _She waits for my reaction._

" _Are you trying to shock me?" I say, rubbing my palm hard against it._

" _No," she says._

" _Do you even know how to use one of these?"_

" _I know enough," she says._

" _And what makes you think I want a cock suddenly?"_

" _Just a hunch…" She shrugs and reaches for my hand. "But if you don't like it…"_

 _I grab the entire bulge into my palm and squeeze. She bucks forward as the Ferris Wheel starts up its slow forward rotation._

 _She smiles as the light catches in her iris. Her cheeks glow and her eyes are full of mischief._

" _I didn't say I didn't like it."_

 _I slide closer to her, more than a little excited by the cock in my hand. And I am surprised—though I don't let her know it—at my own excitement._

 _The wind kicks up and I see her shiver. I lean close and whisper in her ear as I stroke her._

" _And what exactly are you going to do with this?"_

" _Nothing," she sighs back, her mouth a smirk._

" _Nothing?"_

" _No…" she says as she moves her hips in time with the slight rhythm of my stroke. "I got it for you."_

" _I know, Cosima," I say, frustrated that she isn't playing along with my dirty talk. "But what are you going to do with it?"_

" _I think…" she whispers between moans, "that you should tell me...what you...are going to do...with it."_

 _I watch her lips, pink and secretive, until her meaning sinks in._

" _Me?" I say, pumping harder on the cock in my hand without realizing it. "You want me to wear it?"_

" _Yes," she says before a giggle slips past her lips._

 _I want to giggle, too. But instead, I look out over the cityscape. The lights twinkle and the breeze blows and I think of all the people in their offices, in their homes. I am suddenly struck with a realization._

 _I am in America. This is America. From where we sit, we can see it all; the fairgrounds, the streets, the bridge, the water. For a moment, none of it seems real. And still I rub against Cosima, my palm growing warm with the friction._

 _I turn back to her, and when she smiles, I see all those things, the lights of the Ferris wheel, the red of the bridge, the sunshine reflecting in the water, I see all of America reflected in her eyes, and the reflection I see there is somehow more real._

 _The Ferris Wheel lurches forward, snapping me out of my momentary disassociation. Cosima bucks her hips against my hand and holds me in her gaze, licking her lips expectantly._

 _I remember her request, and in remembering, a flame is ignited in my belly._

 _I lean close. I slip my hand beneath her panties. I grab hold of the shaft of the cock and pull it away from her. Her hips follow, but I hold her still._

 _Yes, I lean close and I whisper in her ear._

" _Isn't the view lovely from up here?"_

 _As I whisper the words, she shivers with her hips raised._

" _I'm not paying attention to the view," she says._

" _Isn't the view lovely, Cosima?" I repeat._

 _Then, as she is about to give another smart remark, I push down hard on the shaft, until the entire cock pushes down against her. I had only meant to startle her, but she cries out._

" _Yes!"_

 _For a moment our eyes meet, and her voice echoes out over the fairgrounds. She leans forward, curling around herself and I'm sure that I've struck her clit. I suppress a laugh as she smacks my knee._

 _She pushes my hand away just before our car swings down to the platform. We are ushered off the ride and down the metal steps, passing by more than a few chuckling teenagers as we go._

 _We save our laughs for later._

" _I think it's time to go," I say as we push through the crowd._

" _I agree," she says, already heading for the exit._

* * *

And that is what I mean. Cosima was my rollercoaster. Cosima was the forward momentum that thrilled me. She was arousal, she was lust, she was desire that burned like a thousand little fairy lights, and boomed like cranking gears and screaming crowds.

When she was around, she was all those things. When she was around, the entire city was our fairgrounds. And her apartment—her bed—it was my favorite ride.

* * *

 _She laughs as she climbs the stairs to her apartment. I hear her every step like a clank of the chain, taking us higher. I reach between her legs from behind, but she bats my hand away._

" _Wait!"_

 _Once inside the door, she evades my grasp, slipping her hand from mine and heading for the kitchen._

" _Patience!"_

" _Cosima you are killing me," I say._

" _I think I need a drink," she says. "Don't you want a drink?"_

" _Non," I say. "I've had enough to drink."_

 _She reaches for the bottle. I reach for her hips. I press up against the back of her until she leans forward, all the while pouring herself a drink._

" _Non, I want my present."_

 _She sips on her wine as she giggles to herself._

" _I had no idea you'd be so…" she pauses as she drinks._

 _I wait until she is finished drinking, then I reach around, take the drink from her hands and spin her around._

" _...into this."_

 _Before her skirt settles from the twirl, I reach again for her crotch. This time, she doesn't push me away, but rather leans back against the counter, leans back and looks into my eyes._

 _There they are again, the lights of the fairgrounds, the lights of the city. And there, the butterflies in my stomach, just before the fall._

" _Oh, I'm into it." I say, setting her glass aside._

" _Yeah, I got that. Obvs."_

 _I step back. Take a nice long look at her. She leans back, her hands on the counter, her hips relaxed. She watches me, not stopping me from rubbing against her, from pulling up her skirt..._

 _Neither of us breathes, but both of us smile._

 _I reach into her waistband. I feel it. It's warm and surprisingly soft. Slowly, I pull it out. And when it is out, I hear her sigh_ — _I feel her shiver._

 _We both look down at the same time. She squirms as I grab the shaft, as I hold it in my hand._

" _Hmmm...not too big," I say._

 _Suddenly shy, her voice is soft. "Well, I wasn't exactly sure…" She looks up. "I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with…I mean, I don't think I can handle...I mean, I wasn't sure what would be comfortable."_

" _So you want me to wear it?"_

" _Well, yeah, I just thought, you know, it seemed like something you might like."_

" _And you? Do you think you would like it? If I wore it?"_

 _I tug on the cock._

" _Mhhmm."_

" _Okay," I say, letting go of her and stepping away. "I'll wear it."_

 _She fumbles with the front of her skirt. "Okay, just let me take it off. The harness is a bit tricky..."_

 _I grab her hands._

" _Wait," I say. "Not just yet."_

" _What?"_

 _I push her back against the counter as I kneel before her. I run my hands up her stomach then down her legs._

 _Butterflies in my stomach, and screams inside my ears. She grabs tight to my shoulders._

" _Delphine you don't have to…"_

 _But before she finishes, I take the cock in my hands, then into my mouth. She moans and tenses against me, her hands suddenly tangled in my hair, her eyes momentarily closed tight._

 _But then they are open and she is watching me._

 _It is easy to do, to suck her off, to look into her eyes. It's easy to hold her by the cock, to lead her toward this fantasy. She holds me by the hair, never taking her eyes off of me for a moment. I know by her hisses and her moans—by her "Oh fucks" and "Oh Gods"—that she likes it ._

 _Timidly, she rocks against my mouth. I think she is afraid she will hurt me, but when I reach a hand down, when I rub a finger along the crotch of her panties, she is very wet._

 _My own need mounts. I take all of her cock as deep into my mouth as I can, even as I rub hard against her wet panties. The act sends shivers through us, and we nearly crumble together on the kitchen floor._

 _She tries to pull away once, but I pull her closer with one hand on her low back. The cock in my mouth grows wet with spit, even as I grow wet with arousal. For a moment, I hear my own sounds; the sounds of my throat—guttural and animalistic—and the sounds of my lips—smacking, wet and sliding. For a moment, I feel my own thighs burn with the up and down, with the back and forth of my own hips. For a moment, I see myself, contorted, twisting and squirming beneath Cosima, not wanting to let go of the cock in my mouth, but not satisfied with the lack of thrusting between us._

 _Then, she pushes me away, holding me at arm's length._

" _Holy shit," she says through giggles. "I was not expecting that."_

" _Let me finish, Cherie," I beg, grabbing at her hips, surprised at my desperation._

" _Oh, I want you to finish," she says. "Just...like...give me a minute."_

" _Okay," I relent, wiping at my mouth._

 _We stand, face to face and silent. I'm not sure what she wants exactly, but her smile fades as she leans up to kiss…_

 _Tongues and spit. Entangled limbs. Crashes against kitchen counters. Breaking glass._

 _I lift her up. I carry her to the bedroom. On her back on the bed. She slips from her skirt, from her panties, from the harness straps. The cock comes off. I hold it in my hands as she watches me from the bed._

" _Take off the rest of your clothes," I say, out of breath._

 _She does._

" _Turn around," I say._

 _She does._

 _She never asks if I need help, and I don't want her help. I want to see her laid out on the bed, her back to me, her ass round and perky. I want to see the rise and fall of it. I want to see dip of her spine, the curve of her neck, the crest of her shoulder blade as she rests her head on the back of her hand._

 _I struggle to concentrate. My desire is so strong that I can barely figure out the straps of the harness, but once I do…_

 _I grab the thing between my legs, giving it a tug to make sure it's secure. I like the way it feels in my hand. I like the way I feel in my stomach_ — _on fire, active, strong. I like the way she looks, quiet on the bed, with her head resting on her arms, and her legs spread slightly._

 _Blood rushes through my ears like wind, and my heart pounds._

 _When she hears me approach she lifts her head to look back. When she sees me, she gasps and arches her back, climbing up onto her knees. I reach a hand out. I run my palm along her back, all the way up between her shoulder blades, then back down, until I am tracing a fingertip along the line of her ass._

 _My favorite ride._

 _She leans back toward me, until the tip of the cock pushes against the inside of her thigh. She moans and pushes further back, but I hold her still by the hips. I reach between her legs. I press my hand flat against her wet pussy, and she grinds against my palm. I crawl onto the bed and kneel behind her. She leans forward until her face is buried in her hands._

 _This is it, I think with one hand on her ass and one hand on the cock_ — _on_ my _cock._

 _This is how high we are. And there is only one way down._

 _This is how high she gets me. I rub the tip of the cock against her and wait._

 _For a moment she is still, then she moans and leans back. I feel all of her intention as the cock slides in._

 _And with that small movement she has pushed us over the edge. I grab her hips and hold on._

 _I feel another rush to the head that makes me dizzy. I feel a drop in my stomach and so I close my eyes. All things blur, motion is motion, and time is time, but I am not me and she is not, either._

 _We are someone else. We are somewhere else. We are in our own city, our own country_ — _loud and quiet, fast and slow. And when it feels like we reach the end, the bottom becomes the top, and the top is higher than we thought. Where we should be going down, we are going up, and nothing makes sense, but it feels good, and so we hold on and ride it._

 _Momentum leads us—inertia so fast and so strong that we hardly know where to go—clumsy with our limbs, but sure of our intentions. Bound together, where she moves I follow. Equal and opposite, actions and reactions, friction and sweat._

 _Until I shake and shake and shake, until I laugh and crash onto her back. She laughs, too, but her voice is muffled by the pillow that she bites. I slide from her body, and the air mixes with our sweat and sex._

 _We lay on our backs, staring at a ceiling that seems to circle slowly, though we are still. She reaches for my hand, her chest heaving in the periphery._

" _Holy shit," she whispers._

" _I know."_

 _We face each other and I think I can still see the fairground lights in her eyes. But then she drifts to sleep, a smile on her lips, and all the lights go dark beneath the weight of her eyelids._

 _And in the dark, I sleep, too._


	7. Chapter 7

_The Day That Everything Changed_

* * *

I suppose when I look back—if I'm being completely honest—there was just one day when things finally changed.

Or maybe I'm wrong. It's hard to say. It's hard to point to one day, to one moment. Following these moments back in time, they seem to stack one on top of the other like a pile of reports, each one inconclusive in its own right, but when taken together, they form a strong case—we were bound to fail.

There were little things, like forgotten promises or cancelled plans. There were bigger things, like forgotten anniversaries. There were tiny, tiny, miniscule, minute things that in the moment seemed big.

* * *

" _You never buy me flowers," I say while pouring a cup of coffee._

 _I mean it as a joke, a light tease, a subtle prodding to get a little bit of the old flirtation back._

 _But when Cosima steps into the kitchen, her stockings half-on and her eyeliner a day old and smudged at the edges, her expression is anything but flirtatious._

" _What's that supposed to mean?"_

 _I turn from the counter. I lean back in a playful way._

" _Nothing," I say, holding my coffee mug to my mouth. "I was just thinking that you used to buy me flowers, but now you don't."_

 _Our eyes meet. I expect a...well, I don't know what I expect, but it isn't this cold stare._

 _She straightens her skirt and walks to the counter, pouring her own cup of coffee in silence._

" _Cosima?"_

 _More silence._

" _Cosima?"_

 _She walks toward the door. "I've got to go."_

" _Aren't you going to say goodbye?" I say, my voice shaking before I understand my own fear._

 _She pauses for a moment, then says a tight-lipped, "Goodbye."_

 _But I know she doesn't mean it, not really, because she doesn't leave. Instead, she stands with her hand on the doorknob._

" _Cosima?" I say for the third time. "What's going on?"_

" _Good question," she says. "Why don't you tell me?"_

" _I was just asking a question_ —"

" _Yeah, a really passive-aggressive question."_

" _Non," I say. "It was harmless...a joke."_

" _Do you think I'm not good to you? Do you think I treat you unfairly?"_

" _Non," I say, shaking my head._

" _I'm tired, Delphine," she says as her shoulders slouch._

" _That's what I've been saying, Cosima. You need rest_ —"

" _No, I need support_ — _I need your support_ — _but instead, I just get petty demands for flowers."_

" _It's not a demand_ —"

" _I work so hard, Delphine, so hard. I'm trying to build a future—for you—for us. I named an entire species after you! And now you're giving me shit about some flowers?!"_

" _It was a joke, Cosima. Nothing more," I say, stepping forward, reaching a hand out to her._

 _She brushes me away._

" _Fine," she says. "I gotta go."_

* * *

But, not every day was like that.

No, when she was around, things were bright, even I was bright.

But this day _was_ like that. This day, when she left the apartment, there was only bitterness behind her. And when she came home in the evening, she packed her bag in a few moments, having never completely unpacked from her last trip.

* * *

" _Do you think you might be able to come home early?" I say, almost whispering._

" _I don't know. It depends on our luck and the rain."_

 _She stuffs a windbreaker into the bag and stands up._

" _Oh."_

 _I sit on the edge of the bed, unable to look at her, afraid that if I open my mouth again, it would only be to beg her to stay. So I bite my lip and look down._

 _She kneels by the bed. She reaches for me. She touches my forehead and speaks in a gentle tone._

" _This is the last trip," she says. "It's almost over."_

 _She hugs me, and in hugging me she soothes away my last bit of self control._

" _Please, don't go," I say, though I had resolved not to. "Please, I can't bear it...I just can't bear it when you're gone."_

" _You'll be okay..." She strokes my cheek._

" _You don't understand..."_

" _I do," she says, pulling me closer. "I do."_

" _What if—_ "

 _I can barely say the words, afraid of her rejection._

" _What if...?" she says._

" _What if I come with you?"_

" _And take off work?"_

" _I can say it's a family emergency—that I have to go back to Paris."_

" _You would lie?"_

" _Yes. Why not? I've done it before."_

 _For a moment, as she stares into my eyes, I see all her thoughts scrambling around. For a moment, I think she will smile and say yes._

 _But then…_

" _No," she says. "I don't think it's a good idea. I will be so busy there, we'd never get to see each other anyways. And we are so close to our goal. I just need to focus and if you were there it'd be so distracting and really I just want to finish this as—"_

 _Her words continue, but I'm not really hearing them, because I'm fixated on this one little word…_

" _Distracted?" I say._

" _You know what I mean," she says, kissing my cheeks. "I'd just be so busy, like why come all the way there just to still not be able to see each other, you know? It seems a bit counter-intuitive."_

 _She holds my face in her hands. She wants so desperately for me to let it drop, but her eye twitches and she knows she has hurt me. Still, she looks to the clock on the desk._

" _I gotta go," she says with a kiss. "Are you okay?"_

 _Arms still crossed, I can't look into her eyes. "Yeah, go," I say._

 _I have never not meant something more in my life._

* * *

I don't remember when or how she left, but I do remember sitting alone on the edge of the bed. I do remember that when I woke up the next morning, the city that was once a red and gold fairgrounds became dimmed out like an autumn day.

I can also tell you the moment that things changed. I can tell you the moment, after days in the shadow of dark clouds, when the air suddenly lifted, when the clouds suddenly parted, when all at once I felt light.

Quite conversely, it was a stormy day and my hair was a mess. I was soaked to the bone despite my plastic rain coat. I went through my day like that; I taught my classes, I met my students, I sat through my office hours, I ate my lunch—soggy, heavy and never completely dry.

And when I carried my heavy bones out to the parking lot, I was in no hurry to get home—there was no one waiting for me, no fairy lights, no Ferris Wheel, no favorite ride.

And when I reached for the lock on the chain, a ray of light landed square across the back of my hand. I didn't think for a moment that it was a ray of sunshine. No, I heard the car motor long before I saw the headlights.

I expected them to pass on, but the car paused right behind me. Even still, I paid more attention to the lock in my hand than to the light over my shoulder.

But then she spoke— _in French._

"Do you need a ride?"

"Perdon?"

"Do you need a ride somewhere?"

"Ehm..."

I froze, unable to see the woman's face in the glare of the headlights. I thought about my soggy shoes. I thought about my damp socks and tangled hair.

"You're Dr. Cormier, correct?"

"Oui, I am," I said, standing up. "Do I know you?"

"Oh, sorry," she said, pushing open the car door.

She popped open her umbrella then walked to my side, her hand outstretched. Without thinking, I shook it.

"My name is Melanie...ehm, Dr. Fleur."

"Dr. Fleur," I repeated.

"I'm the new Head of the French Department. I sent out an introductory email a while back."

"Email? Oh, of course...sorry, I've been quite distracted lately."

We stood for a moment, her with an umbrella overhead and me with a confused scowl dripping from my face.

She looked at me expectantly.

"So?" she said.

"Hmm?"

"Do you need a ride?"

"Oh..."

I looked down at the bike. I looked up at her friendly face. The answer was obvious. There was no reason to say no.

"Non," I said. "I rode my bike today."

"I can see that."

"I need to ride it home...so that I have it in the morning."

"But I can take your bike, too."

I glanced at the black Escalade over her shoulder, the one with more than enough room in the back.

"Non," I repeated, turning away from her. "Non, I'm quite all right, thank you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, quite sure."

"D'accord. I will see you tomorrow then."

"Oui," I said without facing her.

I heard her hurry over to her car. I heard the door open and close. I heard her pull away as I fumbled with the lock in my hands.

It was only when she was pulling out of the parking lot that I finally allowed myself to look up at her taillights.

 _That was rude, Delphine,_ I thought.

And even though I admonished myself all the way home, when she made the exact same offer a few days later, I said no for the second time.

"But you shouldn't ride on a flat tire," she said, driving slowly alongside me. "It will ruin your rim."

"Oh, I'm not going to ride on it, I'm going to walk it home."

"Well, how far is that?"

"Not far," I said. "Besides, it's a beautiful day."

She leaned over her steering wheel to get a better look. She squinted into the sunlight, then smiled and glanced my way.

"You're right about that," she said. "See you around."

That night, I dreamed in French and woke up refreshed.

It's funny, isn't it, how fast your first language can become your second?

It was her third invite that I finally accepted, but it's not what you think.

I was riding home. It was right at the hour before twilight, and the light was in my eyes—in everyone's eyes—and we proceeded home, half-blind and hoping for the best.

I zoomed into an intersection at the same moment that a black Escalade inched forward through a red light.

My front wheel hit the Escalade's front tire first. My back tire took flight, flipping me right over the top of my handlebars.

I didn't hear the screech of tires. I only heard the dull thud of bone and flesh.

I landed face first onto the hood of the car. I must have rolled over the front bumper, because a moment later, I found myself on my hands and knees in the street.

I raised a hand. I stood. She pushed open her door, her face horror-stricken and pale. I tried to explain with a mouth full of blood that it was the sun's fault.

I turned toward the street to see my bike bell there, just as it passed beneath the wheels of traffic—once, twice, three times—until it was split open like an apple.

"Dr. Cormier!"

I turned.

"Dr. Cormier!"

 _Who is calling my name?_

"You're bleeding!"

I saw her, the French professor, pulling off her sweater as she approached. She balled it up in her hands, then pressed it toward my face. I pulled away, my hands outstretched, wondering why she wouldn't leave me alone, especially now.

Couldn't she see I was busy?

"I'm so sorry!" she said, reaching for me. "I'm so sorry!"

"What?"

"Vous saignez!"

 _I'm bleeding._

"Vous saignez!"

I looked down. My blouse was covered in blood. Lots of it. I tilted my head back, thinking it was my nose, but no.

The blood rushed back over my tongue. I choked on it; I spit.

"Here! Take this!" she said, pressing her sweater toward me again.

I understood. I grabbed it from her. I pressed it to my face. I wiped at my chin.

Her face was suddenly very close to mine, her eyes wide and concerned.

"Where am I bleeding?" I tried to say.

I pulled her sweater away. It was covered in my blood.

"Where am I bleeding?!"

She bent down. She looked up at my face, glancing over my eyes, my nose, my cheeks and mouth. She held me by my ears. She leaned closer and closer.

"Open your mouth," she said.

I did as she said. She squinted and leaned, and squinted and leaned, tilting my head back by my ears. She winced then stepped away, pushing my hand toward my mouth.

"It's your tooth," she said. "Your front tooth."

I tried to reply, but she held the sweater against my upper lip.

"Here," she said, leading me toward her car with one hand on my back. "Let me help you."

I nodded my head and followed her.

And so, you see, the third time she offered me a ride, I didn't really have a choice but to accept it.

* * *

 **The Night That Everything Changed.**

I can tell you the night that everything changed.

It was the night that I got home from the airport, the night that I ran up the stairs with flowers in my hand.

It was the night that I stopped at the door, careful to open it because it was late and I didn't want to startle Delphine out of her slumber.

But as I reached for the door, I heard a sound so different from silence that it was startling.

Delphine's laugh.

I smiled and pushed open the door.

She stood in the kitchen, her hand on the counter, her posture light and lovely, her eyes locked on a stranger.

I opened the door so quietly that neither of them even noticed me. I really wish they had.

It would have been infinitely better if they had dropped all conversation, if they had turned to me right away. But they didn't.

No, they kept right on, laughing and chatting. I didn't hear what the stranger said; her back was to me. But even if I could have, I wouldn't have understood the soft, flirty French words that sent Delphine leaning back into a laugh—into _her_ laugh.

The sound made me soar; the sound made me sink.

I laughed myself, a sympathetic chuckle, little more than a heavy breath.

Delphine looked up, her eyes wide when she saw me. Almost immediately she covered her mouth with her hand, but not before I saw the gap in her teeth.

"Cosima," she said with a subtle lisp. "What are you—?"

"I came back."

Suddenly embarrassed by the flowers in my hand, I took a step back.

The stranger stood up, smiled, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, then looked away.

Delphine stepped forward, her hand still guarding her face.

"Cosima, this is Melanie...ehm...Professor Fleur. She took me to the hospital—"

"—Only after I hit her with my car," the stranger said. "Not intentionally, of course."

"To the hospital?" I said, with the door wide open. I clutched tightly to the bouquet, crunching the cellophane wrapper.

"Oui," Delphine said, pausing tentatively between the kitchen and the entry way. "Ehm, I was hurt."

She dropped her hand, and she smiled a shy smile.

Her expression confused me. She was embarrassed, but whether it was by the unexplained disappearance of her tooth, or by the equally baffling presence of this stranger in our kitchen, I couldn't quite tell.

That was when I noticed her state of dress—or state of undress. She was in her sleeping clothes, pajama pants and a black tank top that flattered her shoulders, neck and chest.

The stranger, too, was in familiar clothes.

"That's my shirt," I said before I could stop myself.

"Oh, sorry...ehm…"

"I hope you don't mind," Delphine said. "We were both covered in blood. It was a real mess. You should have been there."

"Yeah…" I said. "I guess so."

"I'll return it tomorrow, I promise."

"No. It's no problem at all."

We all stood for a moment, none of us moving, none of us speaking, a triangle of tension.

"Well, this is certainly unexpected," I said finally. "And here I thought I was the one with the surprise."

"Ehm…yes," Delphine said, pensive for a moment. "Yes! Wait! You're early! What day is it? You're early! Oh my God!"

Her hands went to her forehead as she stumbled toward me. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me into a hug; a hug that would have been joyful had my view not been filled with the figure of this stranger, her arms crossed, her head down, her eyes cautious to avoid our embrace.

I chose to close my eyes to her, to bury my face in Delphine's hair instead. The flowers in my hand pressed against her back, and when I opened my eyes, I caught the stranger glancing at the red petals before turning away. I felt Delphine begin to pull away, but I held her a little bit longer, squeezing her until I saw the stranger reach for her coat.

"I'd better go," she said softly; so soft that Delphine didn't hear her.

"These are for you," I said, suddenly presenting the flowers.

"Oh, cherie," Delphine said, her eyes alight. "I would kiss you, but—"

"Well, then let me kiss you," I said, leaning up for her cheek, glancing once again over her shoulder.

The stranger stood by her chair, her coat in her hands.

"So, tell me the whole story," I said, stepping toward the kitchen. "It sounds like a good one."

"Oui, well, I was riding my bike home," Delphine started, "And, ehm, then she hit me. Or, maybe I hit her?"

"Just like that?"

"Yeah, just like that."

"And I hit my mouth on the hood of her car, and...then...then she gave me a ride to the hospital and made sure I was okay, and that's it, really, I suppose."

Silence again, save for the crinkle of cellophane in Delphine's hands.

"Oh, come on," I said. "There must be more to it than that. How long were you at the hospital?"

"Oh, I don't know," Delphine said, suddenly busying herself with setting the flowers in a vase. "To be honest, I don't remember much. I think I blacked out for most of it, and now my head is foggy with painkillers. Melanie, perhaps you can tell more."

"Oh, no," the stranger said. "There's really not much more to tell. Besides, I really should get going. It's late."

"Is it?" I asked, though I knew full well how late it was. "Well, that's a shame. I was just about to open a bottle of wine to celebrate."

"To celebrate?" the stranger said.

"Yep. Just got back from my last trip to Brazil. Two years of work is finally starting to wrap up and pay off and all that jazz. We discovered seven new species in all. Can you believe that?"

"Wow. Congratulations."

"Thank you. So now, no more travel, no more trips...which means that I will be around a lot more often...which is good...for us," I said, reaching for Delphine's hand.

There was that embarrassed smile again.

She touched my back lightly as she left the ghost of a kiss on my cheek, then she stepped away.

"Let me show you out," she said as she escorted the stranger to the door. "And thank you again for everything. I don't know how I will ever repay you."

"Non, non," the stranger said, slipping into French.

Her words drifted out like a lover's hand strokes. Their rhythm, their tenderness, their sincerity made my skin crawl. But worst of all, they made Delphine smile.

I stood in the kitchen, an awful feeling boiling up in my belly—in my throat. My flowers were laid out on the counter, the cellophane wrapper opened and stripped away, and the blossoms abandoned next to an empty vase.

I reached for the wine bottle. I ripped the foil wrapper from the neck. I twisted the corkscrew too hastily and broke the cork. And by the time I stabbed the cork through with a butter knife, Delphine had closed the door on the stranger, shutting it softly, almost reluctantly.

I poured out two glasses and looked up. She leaned against the bedroom door, her arms crossed in a tired sort of way.

"What a long day," she said with a gentle smile.

"Wait," I said. "Are you going to bed?"

"Oui, I'm very tired."

"I know, but, I just got here."

Her smile stretched and her eyes flickered with the last little bit of light. "Oui, cherie, and that makes me very, very happy."

I knew she was telling the truth, but greedily, I coaxed her toward the kitchen.

"Just one little drink," I said.

"Cosima, I don't know...I'm on a lot of medication."

"One sip won't hurt."

She relented, reaching for the glass.

"What should we toast to?" she asked.

"To getting through the mud...to waiting for the flower."

"Oh!" she said, looking down at the counter. "The flowers! Merde!"

She turned away from me and looked down, brushing her curls to the side and exposing her neck. I couldn't stop myself from slipping up behind her, from wrapping my arms around her waist and laying a kiss on her shoulder blade.

"I missed you," I whispered.

"I missed you, too."

But she was distracted by the flowers. I ran my hands up her back, over her shoulders and down the length of her arms.

"I said...I missed you."

She sighed and leaned back against me, and when my hands ran up her stomach to her breasts, a moan escaped her lips. She turned in my arms, so that a moment later we were face to face. She placed her hands on my cheeks and looked wearily into my eyes.

"And I've missed you," she whispered. "You have no idea."

"Show me."

"What?"

"Show me how much you've missed me."

She searched my face, her eyes darting back and forth.

"What do you mean?" she said with her head cocked to the side.

"Kiss me," I said, pinching her waist.

"Cosima…" she looked away. "I'm missing a tooth...and my mouth hurts very badly...more than you can imagine—"

"Then let me kiss you."

"It doesn't matter who does the kissing. Did you not understand the part about the missing tooth—the injured mouth—the pain?"

"Well, what if I kiss you somewhere else?"

I pulled up on the bottom hem of her shirt. She grabbed my hands, holding them still, but after a moment she relented.

"Don't forget about the exhaustion," she said. "I can barely keep my eyes open."

I grabbed her by the hand. I led her toward the bedroom.

"Then let's get you nice and comfortable. You don't have to do anything but accept my kisses."

She giggled wearily as she followed me into the bedroom, as she fell back onto the bed. "Of course, I will always accept your kisses, but I can't promise I won't pass out in the middle—"

But before she could finish her sentence, I had her laid out on the bed. I pulled on the elastic of her pants. She gasped as I laid little kisses over her hip bones, over the soft mound of her pelvic bone. I pulled her pants down a little more, until she was exposed, just barely. I tucked my face down between her legs and gave her a kiss. She giggled and squirmed beneath me.

I pulled her pants away completely and tossed them aside. I turned off the light before returning to bed. She was waiting for me with her knees up. One hand was covering her crotch and the other hand was covering her mouth.

"Cosima, you don't have to do this," she whispered into the dark.

"I _want_ to do this. Please, just let me."

She sighed again as I spread her knees wide, as I pulled her forward by her hips. I laid myself down on my stomach, and then kissed the inside of her thigh. At first, she was quite still in the darkness, but after a few kisses at the soft flesh of her inner thigh, her hips bucked forward. After a few _more_ kisses, she was gyrating in a soft rhythm that matched the tempo of my kisses.

She moaned and relaxed, moaned and relaxed; further back into the pillow, further down toward my mouth. In fact, she strained to get closer to me, moving her hips strategically, pushing her clit toward my lips, but I never quite let her reach me.

"Cosima," she whispered into the dark. "Please."

I paused and looked up. Her head was pushed back into her pillow. Her eyes were closed. Finally, with only the tip of my tongue I tasted her. She shivered beneath me and pushed against my mouth.

But then I pulled away.

"Speak French," I said.

Her eyes shot open. "What?"

"Ask me to taste you in French."

"Why?"

"Because I want to hear it."

She whispered something into the dark, but rather than sounding sweet like a lover's hand stroke, her words were halted—reluctant.

I dipped my tongue inside her again.

She reached for my head. She tangled her fingers into my hair and pulled me toward her, unsatisfied by my light touch.

But I pulled away again.

"Tell me you love me."

"I love you."

"No, tell me in French."

"J'taime."

"Tell me you are mine."

She whispered again, but this time her words were even more exasperated than before. I thought they would arouse me—arouse us both—but something about them rang false. I didn't even understand what she said, but it didn't sound like she meant it.

"Tell me that you want me to fuck you...that you only want _me_ to fuck you."

"Cosima," she said, her fingers hesitating in my hair. "I—"

"Say it like you mean it," I said. "I'll know if you don't mean it."

She froze.

"Cosima, what's going on?" she said, leaning up onto her elbows.

"Just say it. Then I can continue—"

"And what if I don't want to say it?"

"Then you don't get the rest of your kisses."

She reached for my head. She pushed me away. "Well, then maybe I don't want them."

The room was silent between us. She sat up against the headboard with her knees tucked up and away from me. I heard her sigh, but it was not sweetly.

"What's with your sudden interest in the French language?" she said.

"No sudden interest. I just wanted to hear it. That's all."

"Then why the sudden attitude? Why the sudden obsession? 'Say it like you mean it?' What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I just wanted to know if you miss it."

"Miss what?"

"Speaking French."

"Speaking French?"

"Yeah, tonight when you were talking to Melanie, it sounded like…"

"Sounded like what?"

"It sounded like you were enjoying yourself."

"Enjoying myself?" she almost started to laugh it off, but the darkness in the room swallowed her laugh. "Oh my god. Are you jealous?"

Or maybe it was the darkness in my heart. Maybe she could feel it because she swallowed hard before she spoke again.

"Cosima, you have nothing to fear from that woman. She is just an acquaintance, not even a friend."

"It didn't seem that way."

"When?"

"When she was speaking to you...when she was leaving…"

"She was just saying goodbye. It was nothing."

"Then why couldn't she say it in English?"

"I don't know. We were both tired. It was a long day. It was nothing."

"It wasn't nothing, Delphine!" I shouted, surprising both of us.

I stood up from the bed.

"Cosima, I don't know what's gotten into you tonight, but I'm too tired for this. I'm telling you it was nothing, and you just have to believe me."

"If it was nothing, then why couldn't you say it?"

"Say what?!"

"That you only want _me_ to fuck you?!"

I heard her mouth, tight-lipped and furious. I heard her breath escape in a huff through her nose.

"Alright, this is crazy," she said, finally.

"Oh, yeah! I'm totally crazy! I'm totally making this all up! Maybe that's why you didn't answer my calls, huh? Maybe you were too busy with Dr. Fleur?"

She grabbed a pillow from the bed.

"Where are you going?" I asked, as if I couldn't see her heading for the bedroom door. "You'd rather leave than tell me that you want me?"

Before she left the room, she paused at the door, not even turning to face me. My ears rang with the buzz of my own righteousness. I could barely hear her over the sound of my own beating heart.

"Your behavior is ridiculous and hurtful and I'm not going to be bullied by you right now."

"I'm not bullying you, I'm begging! JUST TELL ME YOU WANT ME! What's so hard about that?!"

But she slammed the door even before I could finish the thought, leaving me to shout alone in an empty room.

Yes, if I'm honest with myself, that was the night that everything changed. If I'm honest with myself, I should have reopened the door right after she closed it. I should have apologized. I should have told her about the nothingness that surrounded me, that she was the only thing that kept it away, that I wouldn't survive the night without her.

But I didn't. I let her walk away.

No, that's not entirely true.

The truth is, I pushed her, that night and several nights after, if only to see if she'd come back of her own free will.

It was a gamble and in the end, I was wrong. In the end, I lost.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Wedding Day.**

* * *

There is no point in denying it, when I put that coat on that day it was only to mark myself—red and unwavering—to catch her eye and make sure she didn't miss me in the sea of pale strangers.

It wasn't particularly cold that day. In fact, as I walked up to the ivy-covered gate, my palms were damp and a bead of sweat dripped down my spine. I hesitated, one hand tucked into my pocket, and the other clenching, white-knuckled, to a gift bag. I looked up.

I saw the shadow of the bride in the window above the courtyard though I couldn't be sure _which_ bride it was. I saw the white volume of a dress through the glass, but the rest of her was obscured by angles and afternoon light. I stepped into the courtyard, hopeful that she might be looking for me, too, but then the shadow was gone and I was left alone to catch the sideways glances of the other wedding guests.

There was so much white; white dresses, white flowers with matching white tablecloths, and circulating amongst the guests, elegant waiters carrying trays atop their elegant white gloves. I reached for a glass of pink champagne, hoping to ingest its bubbling optimism, and when I had downed the glass in one painful gulp, I reached for the waiter's elbow.

"Can I help you, Miss?" he said.

"Uh, yes," I stuttered. "Yes, you can. At least, I hope you can."

"And what can I do for you?"

"I need you to take this to the bride," I said, raising the gift bag toward him. "To Miss Cormier."

"The gift table is just inside the double doors."

"No, no," I said, reaching into my pocket. "I'd like you to take it to her, personally."

I pulled out a fifty dollar bill, and when the waiter saw it, he rolled his eyes.

"I can't leave my post," he said. "I'd get fired."

He turned to leave, but I grabbed his elbow again.

"Wait!" I said. "I'm desperate!"

He paused.

"Haven't you ever made a mistake?" I asked. "Or, like, a two-year long string of them, and then regretted it? Like, regretted it so much that you think about it every night before you fall asleep—if you fall asleep at all?"

The waiter clenched his jaw before glancing around the courtyard of guests.

"I'm begging here," I said. "This is my last chance."

"Lesbians!" the waiter scoffed, rolling his eyes again. But then he reached for my gift bag. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you—"

"But I can't make any promises."

I watched him walk off, weaving through the crowd toward the white tent that housed the bar. He set his tray down, then leaned over the bar. The bartender looked up for just a moment, then following the line of the waiter's pointed finger, his eyes landed on me. He smirked and I smiled, hoping to gain some pity from across the courtyard.

 _I should have brought another fifty,_ I thought.

But then the bartender brought out a bucket and began to fill it with ice. The waiter left the giftbag on the bar and disappeared into the building. I watched as the bartender took the bottle out, as he set in the ice.

I saw Laurent, handsome as ever in his tuxedo. He appeared quite suddenly at the bar, his eyes shining with mischief and flirtation. He leaned casually against the bar as he straightened his bow tie, smiling as he spoke to the bartender.

The bartender pushed the ice bucket toward him, the bottle of Alpha Omega snug inside. Laurent took a step back, confused but curious. The bartender pointed my way, and just before Laurent turned his mischievous eyes on me, I ducked behind an ice sculpture—a swan with its wings spread fortuitously wide.

I reached for another glass of champagne and waited.

I had somehow forgotten that other people might recognize me, people like Laurent, like her mother and father—like Melanie.

 _And what if I come face to face with her? What would I even say?_

I considered taking off my coat, but then no, I couldn't.

 _This is my last chance,_ I thought. _So what if someone sees me? I want them all to see me! I want them all to know that I love Delphine and I'm not scared._

I took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the swan's wings, ready to face Laurent, looking forward to it actually, because maybe he'd speak on my behalf—we'd gotten along pretty well all those years ago.

But he was gone and the ice bucket with him.

I sighed.

 _Well, that's that._

I looked up at the ice sculpture; at the swan's wings, forever outstretched, ready to fly but also frozen in place. The thing would melt before the swan ever took flight. It was a sad thought, and a familiar one.

* * *

" _Delphine are you awake?" I say into the darkness._

 _I half hope she is and I half hope she isn't. But then she stirs and my heart stirs with her._

" _Do you believe in love at first sight?" I whisper._

 _She is quiet, save for her slow breaths. I think I hear her eyelashes brush against the pillow case in a half-conscious opening and closing. I know she has only half heard me, and I think it's best to just drop it there. But then she raises her head, her curls falling back over her bare shoulders._

 _A sliver of streetlight lands on her face, and I am taken aback by her sleepy smile._

" _Do you?" she says._

" _I don't know," I say, but really, I know—I've never been more convinced._

 _She says something funny, something about...snowballs._

 _I like the sound of it, and it sends giggles through me, imagining her in snowboots and a hat, standing atop a hill like a schoolgirl, ready to roll her snowball downhill. I imagine myself, already at the bottom of the hill and wondering if she will follow._

 _I think then how much I'd love to see her in the snow, walking down a winter path, white and barren and beautiful. And then, to see her again in spring, when the sunshine is the kindest, and the days are full of promise. And then summer, her hand over her eyes, a wide brim hat on her head as we stroll along the beach. And then, finally, to nestle beneath the covers with her in the fall, to read books together and wait again for snowball season._

" _So what you're saying is, it's less love at first sight, and more love at first snowball?"_

" _Yes, I guess so."_

" _I like that."_

" _But the sad thing is," she says, "snowballs have a way of melting."_

" _That is sad..." I say._

 _I hesitate to say the last words, if only for a moment because I don't want to cast the first stone at the this fragile thing we have started to build. I touch the tip of her nose and it is cool._

 _We carry the thought experiment further, dreaming up a life together in only a few moments. There are cats to argue over and theses to write, but still we agree, it would be a year of bliss._

 _That is the unspoken promise between us, and we both know it._

 _A year of bliss. And the rest would be worth it._

* * *

I looked again at the swan, its wings outstretched, its head held high, with its eye on some distance place—its own version of bliss. But even as I looked, a single drop fell from its beak only to disappear in the grass.

 _I had promised her a year of bliss,_ I thought. _Just one year. And I didn't even give her that._

It was an awful thought.

 _I had my chance and I wasted it. I let it melt away._

It was a sickening revelation. It was so unbearable, actually, that I turned immediately toward the ivy-covered gate. My feet unsteady, I headed for the exit, setting my glass down on one of the pristine tablecloths as I went. I paused only for a moment at the gate, leaning heavily against it.

 _I will not trap her_ , I thought. _Not again._

I turned to look one last time at the window. A figure appeared there, and this time I was certain. It was her, in her wedding dress, on her wedding day—not my wedding day, _hers_.

Once she had been my swan. Once she had been my lotus. Once she had been my snowflake, but not anymore.

I moved so fast from that gate that I nearly stumbled. The champagne that was meant to make me brave only made me dizzy and nauseous. I thought I might vomit. I paused, leaning against the brick wall, far enough from the gate to not embarrass myself, but close enough to still hear a few high notes of laughter and small talk.

I closed my eyes to their happiness.

 _I wish I had a joint,_ I thought.

That's when I heard it, the music strike up, the ushers call out. I leaned against the wall, my eyes closed but my ears wide open. I heard the guests shuffle across the courtyard, until finally the street was silent, including me.

I dared not move. I dared not breathe.

I was frozen in place, my back anchored to that wall as if I were made of ice, no more able to flee or fly than the swan, somehow convinced that I might be able to hear her say the words, the final yes to Melanie that would be my final no.

But of course, I could hear no words beyond the gossip of the waiters.

I don't know how long I waited, frozen and melting inside, but finally, there came the blow, and I swear it broke me into a thousand pieces—it was the striking up of "The Wedding March." The joyful and triumphant song sent a shiver down my spine and a blast of bile up my throat.

I cried and cried, with my hand over my mouth so that I would not throw up all the optimism that I had swallowed the night before.

 _I was so sure_ , I thought. _I was so sure she was mine._

"She was mine," I repeated over and over, in time with the march. "She said she was mine."

But then, the music wavered. There was a slow fading, a confusion in the woodwinds, a hesitancy in the strings, until finally, the song died out altogether, not in a final triumphant sustain, but in a lackluster petering.

The anticlimax of it was so surprising, that I found myself silent, standing up straight, then taking a step toward the gate, and then another.

By the time I reached the ivy-covered gate and peered into the courtyard, the double doors had already been thrown open. The guests started to file out in sporadic waves. I saw the waiter from before. He watched the crowd with confusion until our eyes met. A light seemed to flicker across his expression and he shook his head.

"Lesbians," he grumbled to himself before walking away.

I chased after him. I grabbed his elbow.

"Hey! Wait!" I called.

"What do you want now?" he snapped.

"What's going on?"

"Looks like a runaway bride."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, someone didn't make it down the aisle."

"Who? Which bride?"

"How should I know? Either way, there goes my paycheck."

"But if she didn't make it down the aisle, then where is she?"

"Again, how should I know?"

I let go of his elbow and turned away, my hands pressing to my forehead. But then he sighed.

"Probably upstairs in one of the dressing rooms," he said, his voice softer now.

I didn't even wait until he finished. I tore off through the courtyard. I made my way up the stairs so fast that I hardly noticed the faces of the people I passed. My eyes searched for one person only, my heart would only know her—would set her apart—from everyone else in an instant.

 _Delphine._

I called her name as I burst through doors, as I opened and closed them, not knocking, not caring who else might be on the other side. I made my way down the hall in a fury of motion, bushing strangers aside, until I reached the room at the end of the corridor.

"Delphine!"

The door was left cracked open, and as I pushed it open completely I saw Melanie there, standing by the window, one hand holding back the sheer curtain, the other hand pressed against the glass as she looked out.

She did not even turn to face me, but whispered to the window, "She's gone."

I saw the table in the middle of the room and the bottle of Alpha Omega left there in the middle of it, unopened, and all at once I knew Melanie was right.

I held tight to the door knob as my knees threatened to give out beneath me. I could not take my eyes off the bottle, off the little ring of condensation that stained the tablecloth, off the glasses that remained unturned, and the label that remained untouched.

 _She didn't want it,_ I thought.

Melanie finally stirred then, just the slightest turn of her chin in my direction.

"The wine…" she said, her voice just within her control. "Is it yours?"

"Yeah."

"And Delphine?"

"Delphine?"

"Is she yours, too?" she said, turning completely now, turning enough that I could see the places where her tears had streaked her cheeks and mussed her makeup.

I shrugged despite the pit in my stomach and the ache in my heart. "It doesn't look like it."

Our eyes met.

Her mouth twisted and puckered, like she was biting back more tears, like she could not bear the indignation of crying in front of me—of crying with me.

Yes, I was crying.

I had not realized it until we faced each other, her at the window and me at the door, the empty room between us; mirror images of our mutual loss.

"I'm sorry," I said.

She laughed as if it was a ridiculous thing to say.

"I am," I said. "I know it doesn't mean much now, but—"

"You're right," she said, stepping forward. "It doesn't mean shit!"

Full disclosure, I wasn't upset that she shouted. I didn't expect anything else. But then, life is full of surprises, because soon, her shoulders slouched forward as she led herself slowly to an armchair and let herself sink down into it, hanging her head as if her insult had brought her no satisfaction at all.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping at her face. "That was uncalled for."

"Well, now we're both sorry."

She smiled at that and looked at the bottle of wine.

"Is it good wine, at least?"

"It's not bad."

She nodded her head as if my answer made sense, but I don't know what sense she could have made of it. I saw in her a reflection of my own confusion, my own inability to make sense of anything.

"She was never mine," Melanie said. "I always knew it."

"Maybe she was never anyone's…maybe nobody is—"

"No," she said, nodding her head vigorously. She stood up again and returned to the window. She looked out, and I knew the look of her—felt it in my bones, even—the woman staring out the window after the love she had just lost. "No. Everyone is someone's, and I was hers. I _was_."

I believed what she said about herself, and I wanted to believe what she said about everyone else, too.

"I was hers," she went on, "and this whole time she was yours. I'm such an idiot."

"Mine?" I said, momentarily incredulous.

"Of course. Isn't it obvious?"

"If she was mine, then why did she say yes to you?"

"She never said yes—not the real yes."

"Maybe not, but she chose you—this wedding, this church, these flowers. None of this is mine, and neither is she."

She laughed again, another loud laugh. "We are all so stupid! Don't you get it?"

"Get what?"

"I was hers and she was yours. Always. Any fool could have seen it! I'm so stupid! And you! Who do you belong to, Cosima?"

I opened my mouth, ready to shout back, but I could not think of anything to say. All my comebacks were worthless in the face of her question. It should have been easy. All I had to do was say her name, but then the darkness closed in around me—that old familiar fear—and filled my mouth with doubt.

I said nothing.

She scoffed and turned away. "That's what I thought."

She had dismissed me. She was done with our conversation. She wanted me to leave and did not care to hear my answer even if I did come up with one.

Still, I said nothing.

I backed out of the room and I said nothing. I closed the door on her loss and I said nothing. I stood in the hallway, listening as waiters worked downstairs to clear away the day's work.

I stood in the hallway alone, just me and the nothing.

Her question rang in my ears. _Who do you belong to Cosima?_

"Delphine," I whispered. "Always Delphine."

I understood Melanie's joke suddenly, and why she thought it was so funny. All this time, Delphine had been asking me the same question in a million different moments, in a million different ways— _Who do you belong to?_

All this time, and I had not given her the answer she wanted.

It was so simple, and I was so stupid; stupid and alone in a hallway with nothing but my own weary laughter and the nothing.

I leaned back against the wall, staying there a long time because I had nowhere to go, no one to see. I closed my eyes, and finally I understood…

 _Smiling at nothing._


	9. Chapter 9

_The End of the Beginning_

* * *

Every story has a beginning and an ending. It's strange, isn't it, the way things seem to move in circles even when we are standing still?

When I saw Cosima out in the courtyard, I felt my entire world spinning, spinning. I was trapped, stuck to the wall by the momentum of my own choices. I had waited and waited for months, hoping that eventually my feet would stand firm and the direction would be clear.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, but when I opened them, nothing had changed. No clarity had come to me.

I thought that's what Melanie was—a direction, a way in which to point myself. Her life, her family, her money, and her predictability, they were all perfectly oriented toward an ordinary life.

But if Melanie was a direction, easily defined and charted, then Cosima was the horizon, both elusive and alluring.

And perhaps because of this, when I saw her there, just outside the window, I felt that old optimism swell up. It was an excitement, a call to possibility, but also a fear. I wanted to call out her name, but the voice of experience was in my ear.

 _Nothing has changed,_ it said. _It's the same ride on the same rollercoaster. You know where this ends._

But in truth, I didn't know. I had been looking for the spot, the place where my feelings would end, where I could finally step off the ride. But I had failed.

I turned to Melanie.

She sensed my hesitation.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

She paused, the corners of her mouth turning down.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again.

Laurent looked up, his hands still on the bottle of wine, his eyes half-expectant. It was as if he thought this was some kind of joke. He chuckled once, then the room fell silent.

Melanie's face grew redder and redder, and I realized then that she was not breathing at all.

"I'm sorry," I said again, stumbling forward, my head dizzy. "But everything is spinning."

"Have a seat," Laurent said, stepping toward me.

"Non," I said, pushing him away. "Non, I can't sit. I have to move."

"Move where?"

"I don't know. Away from here. Everything is spinning. I have to get off of this ride."

Melanie did not move, nor did she take her eyes from mine, nor did she muster any sympathy for me. She stood with balled-up fists, her face bright red and her jaw clenched. I brushed past her without a last look.

"You're not making sense..." Laurent said.

But I was out the door before he could finish. He chased after me, calling my name and asking questions that I didn't have answers for. I stopped at the landing on the stairs, listening to the guests milling about below. The band had already started playing. I knew I could not face them.

"Where are you going?" Laurent said.

 _It doesn't matter,_ I told myself.

"What doesn't matter?" he said.

I can't be sure but I think I heard Melanie gasp behind me.

"The destination," I said.

He nodded his head as if he understood, but how could he?

"Alright," he said, "then what does matter?"

I looked into his blue eyes. They were dark and serious in the shadow of the hallway.

"The horizon," I said.

"The horizon?"

"Oui."

At that, a slow smile crept across his face.

"D'accord," he said. "Follow me."

* * *

I spent the next several days below deck on my brother's boat. He said it was a friend's boat, but what kind of friend would lend him the thing for so long, I had no idea.

I had no idea about any of it, where we were going or how long it would take to get there. I didn't even really know how many days I had been in that dark interior with only the ring of light from the circular window.

It was easy to not know, because one day seemed to drift into the next. Perhaps a whole week passed, up and down, side to side, in a gentle ebb and flow that lulled me further and further away from reality.

Inside me there were storms—storms as real as any on the sea—and they were only mine. So I refused to come out from that room until, one day, the storm on the sea matched the one in my heart.

A swell rocked the boat so hard, that the entire thing lurched to the side.

I fell to the floor.

Overhead waves crashed and rushed over the deck. Laurent cried out somewhere above me, followed by — _BANG! BANG! BANG!_.

"Laurent!" I cried, crawling to my feet.

I hurried up the stairs to find Laurent struggling with the steering wheel. We lurched from side to side, and when I looked out the front window onto the black sea, I was struck with an awful horror.

The black swell of water climbed so high in front of us, that it was hard to imagine we'd ever make it over in one piece. But we did make it over. After a moment of teetering at the crest of the wave, the bow crashed down on the other side in a crushing jerk and sway.

Laurent laughed and whooped and when I looked at him, I was appalled to see a wild grin on his face. He wasn't scared at all.

"What are we going to do?!" I shouted. "We have to get out of here!"

"Oh this?" he shouted back. "This is nothing! Look at the horizon!"

I did.

At the crest of the next wave, there was a moment when I could see far, far out over the water, all the way to the horizon, which seemed to glow like a pink and gold sunset. But then the bow crashed down again, and we were once more surrounded by darkness.

"How long until we get there?" I asked, still crouched in the stairwell.

"Not long, maybe twenty or thirty minutes."

"I don't think I can last that long," I said, already queasy and ready to vomit.

"Sure you can!" he shouted back. "Here, these might make you feel better!"

He reached haphazardly for a life vest hanging on the wall. He tossed it my way and then kicked over the trashcan.

I put the life vest on immediately, then spent the rest of the storm huddled in the stairwell. I clung to the trash can, sometimes with my eyes open, sometimes with my eyes closed. But closing my eyes did nothing to help. The only thing that helped was keeping my eyes locked on the horizon, as it rose and fell, rose and fell.

And though the horizon never grew closer, with each passing wave, the sky grew brighter, and the water calmer, until finally, the storm was merely a dark gray cloud that rose up behind us, its power subsided as if it hadn't really happened at all.

"Look!" Laurent said. "This is what I wanted to show you."

He pushed open the cabin door and stepped out. I followed him out onto the deck, my knees still weak and my hands still shaky. I grabbed hold of the railing, because the sea winds were still strong and the water was still choppy.

He pointed out toward the horizon, and though I had to squint against the misty air, I saw the shore in the distance, great tree-covered mountains that rose up from the water.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"The Gulf of Alaska," he said.

"Alaska?"

"Oui!" he said, pointing again. "Do you see it?"

"See what? The mountains?"

"Non, the water."

I shielded my eyes from the sun, and looked out. There, just a little ways off, the still dark slate water became suddenly electric blue, as if a line had been painted in seafoam across the surface of the ocean, and the dark waters on our side were not permitted to cross into the clear blue waters on the other.

"What is it?" I said.

"The place where two oceans meet," Laurent said, "but never mix."

As we moved closer, the contrast grew stronger.

"That's oddly romantic," I said. "If not grossly inaccurate."

He laughed.

"Clearly we are not straddling two separate oceans," I continued. "There is only one Pacific Ocean the last I heard."

"You're completely correct. What you are looking at is the runoff of melting glaciers and snow mixing in with the Pacific—"

"Of course," I said, suddenly understanding. "Fresh water—probably carrying large amounts of sediment—might take a while to blend with salt water, but to say they would never mix is—"

"Wow," Laurent said, "way to kill a good metaphor."

"What do you mean? What metaphor?"

"Never mind," he said. "We'll pull into port shortly, and I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to stand on solid ground."

He headed for the cabin, but paused at the door. "You coming?"

"I'll be there in a minute."

After he was gone, I leaned out over the side of the boat. I watched with great curiosity as the murky waters below gave away, almost instantly, to the bright blue glacial runoff.

I was shocked at how sudden the change was; almost as sudden as the receding of the storm.

I looked toward the shore. I thought of the glaciers that must be there, high in the purple mountains. I thought of their annual melt, of their endless advancing and receding.

The water was strikingly beautiful, so bright that I could not look into it for long. I felt a sense of melancholy that these waters would inevitably mix with the dark waters behind me. I could not say why this thought filled me with a certain type of sadness, but I couldn't shake the feeling, either.

Even as we docked the boat, even as we walked into port, even as we found a local pub and sat ourselves down and ordered our meals, I could not get those two contrasting waters out of my head.

I sat across from Laurent, letting him order for me, because he actually had an appetite.

"The salmon here is great!" he said, his eyes bright.

The waitress brought us wine and fish and bread. It smelled wonderful but still I could do little more than push the food around on my plate.

"Do you think we've fucked it up?" I asked.

"You're going to have to be more specific," he said.

"Do you think we've gone too far?" I asked. "Do you think we've destroyed the glaciers beyond repair? And the icecaps? And ourselves with them?"

"That got dark quickly," he said, pouring himself a glass of wine.

"I mean, once they melt, aren't they gone forever?"

"I guess that depends on what you mean by gone. And what is a glacier, anyway?"

"Laurent, I'm in no mood for your jokes."

"A glacier is large mass of frozen water. That's it. Frozen water and liquid water are essentially the same thing, aren't they?"

"Yes, but…"

"In that case then, no they are not gone, they are just different…"

"Tell that to every global warming expert on the planet!"

"Well, as for your other question, yes, we probably have destroyed ourselves, but who really knows? What I do know is, is that you can't give up hope. Even if every glacier, every iceberg, every snowball has melted from the Earth, we can't give up hope that we can change things for the better. Maybe it's too late to get our glaciers back, but maybe it's not too late to learn to live with all the extra water. "

"I'm not sure that even makes sense," I said.

"Me neither," he said, cracking a smile.

He raised his glass and urged me to do the same. "Let's toast."

"I don't have anything to toast to," I said. "My personal life is a disaster. I will probably lose my job. I'm sitting in Alaska surrounded by strangers and now I'm pretty convinced that every last snowball is doomed to melt in the end. Everything is fucked."

"Exactly! You have nothing to lose!"

"Laurent," I said, "I know you're trying your best to cheer me up, but…I really fucked things up."

He reached for my hand and leaned forward.

"Don't give up hope," he whispered. "Just because things are different doesn't mean they are lost."

"You brought me all the way to Alaska to tell me that?"

He laughed.

"Also for the salmon, which you better start eating soon, or I will be horribly offended."


	10. Chapter 10

_Where the Heart Is..._

* * *

During dinner, I couldn't stop myself from gazing out the window as the sun set over the darkening harbor. I couldn't stop myself from wondering how I had gotten there, somewhere in Alaska, some place I probably couldn't even find on a map.

"Where are we again?" I asked.

"Alaska," he said.

"No, this town—what's it called?"

"Oh this?" he said, following my gaze out the window.

His face was somehow different in the pink and grey twilight. He smiled, and for a moment, he seemed to drift off somewhere, his gaze distant and wistful.

"This is Ketchikan," he said, finally.

"Do you come here often?"

"Non," he said, shrugging as he turned away from the window. "Not often."

"But you like it here?"

"What's not to like?"

I glanced again at the secluded harbor, at the mountains that rose from the water, at the plain buildings in pastel colors that seemed to nestle around the dock like a pack of dogs huddled together for warmth.

"It _is_ beautiful," I had to admit. "But there's not much here, is there? I mean, besides the salmon."

"Maybe not, but to the people who call it home, I suppose there's just enough."

"Oui," I said.

 _To the people who call it home._

"Home is where the heart is and all that…" he continued.

"Sure," I said as I turned toward the window again. "Sure."

 _Sure,_ I thought. _But what about me?_ _Where do I call home?_

Of course, I didn't say that out loud.

I felt Laurent watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I half-expected some sort of snarky remark about my melancholy mood, but he said nothing. Instead, he finished his meal, set his napkin on the table, and let the waitress take away his empty plate, all without another word.

I thought that we would soon stand, soon pay the bill, soon walk back down the short road to the dock and settle our selves in for the night on the little boat. But when the waitress came to take my half-eaten plate away, Laurent leaned in and bat his lashes up at her.

"So what's good for dessert?" he asked.

She brought a menu which Laurent held between us, reading out each item with a forced enthusiasm.

"Banana bread pudding?" he asked.

"Non," I said.

"Chocolate cake?"

"Non."

"Strawberry rhubarb pie?"

"Non," I said. "You go ahead and get whatever you want. I'm just not in the mood…"

"Suit yourself, but since we _did_ survive a particularly nasty storm…"

"Oh man!" the waitress said, "Tell me you guys weren't caught out in that mess today?"

"We were," I said, nauseous again at the memory of the lurching waves.

"…I think I will celebrate with something sweet," Laurent continued. He turned to the waitress. "We'll take the pie."

"Sure thing," she said. "And congrats on making it out in one piece. I heard it was a record breaker for the season."

"Merci," Laurent said.

The hairs on my neck stood up as she walked away.

"Hey!" I said after she'd gone. "I thought you said that storm was nothing."

"I may have exaggerated a little."

"So you lied?"

"Would you have rather known the truth?"

My stomach turned again, and my pulse raced. I couldn't tell if I was angry, or terrified, or relieved. I leaned back in my seat with my arms crossed, glaring at Laurent from across the table as he glanced around the empty bar.

And no wonder the bar was empty—and the port as well—everyone with good sense had stayed home. I glared even harder, my brows furrowed so hard that I gave myself a headache.

"What?" Laurent said. "You said follow the horizon and that's what I did."

"I didn't say lead us into a record-breaking storm!"

He shrugged. "I may have heard a warning or two…but the weather is unpredictable. We can't change our plans just because the forecast predicts rough waters."

"Yes, you can!" I said. "That's the exact reason weather forecasts exist in the first place!"

He scoffed. "We survived, didn't we? You are stronger than you."

I glared in return. But he just laughed and leaned in again.

"You'd make an excellent sailor," he said.

"Non. No way."

"Oui. I have no doubt."

"Nope. Never."

"You have the heart of an explorer," he said. "You said it yourself. You seek the horizon. And if you seek the horizon, then you also seek storms. You can't seek one and not the other. And so, you cannot say that you don't like them—the storms and the danger and the unknown—because that is the very thing you are seeking. If you say that you love the horizon and in the same breath say that you don't love the storms, well..."

The waitress arrived with one slice of pie.

"…then you are lying to yourself," he continued, his voice gentler than before.

She set the plate on the table.

"This one's on the house," she said.

"Would you look at that?" Laurent said. "It seems to be our lucky day!"

"Merci," I muttered.

"Don't thank me," she said. "Thank Elliot."

"Elliot?" I said.

"Elliot?!" Laurent said, whipping around in his seat. "Has he been here this whole time?! The scoundrel!"

I turned, too, if only to see what all the commotion was about.

A laugh barreled out from the kitchen before we saw him. He pushed open the saloon doors, smiling when he saw us. His skin was dark and his eyes were alight.

"Well, look what the squall brought in?!" he said, his voice booming and his accent British.

And when I looked toward Laurent, his face was glowing with an expression that I couldn't quite place.

 _Is he embarrassed?_

No, it was only when the stranger approached the table and took off his knit cap that I realized what I was seeing— _attraction._

Laurent stood and pulled the stranger into an embrace that was neither too rough, nor too tender. I sat and watched. My shock had made me rude.

"Delphine, this is Elliot," Laurent said. "Elliot, this is my sister, Delphine."

"Hello," I said, staring up from my seat.

"Elliot is a friend," Laurent said. "The one I told you about—the one with the boat."

"Oh!" I said, finally standing. "I'm sorry, I just…I wasn't expecting company."

I glanced at Laurent and he shrugged.

 _Is he blushing?_

"Anyway," Elliot said, pulling me into a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

"Please! Join us!" Laurent said.

"Oh, no. I wouldn't want to intrude," Elliot said.

"Nonsense! What intrusion? It's no intrusion. Right, Delphine?"

Laurent gave me a sideways look and a— _OW!_ —not-so-subtle kick under the table.

"Right?" he said again, leaning back into the corner of the booth with a contrived sort of nonchalance.

I sighed. "Right. Not at all."

Laurent smiled.

"Great!" Elliot said. "Drinks on me, then?"

As soon as Elliot's back was turned, Laurent leaned in, not an ounce of mischief in his eyes.

"Look," he whispered in French. "I know you're really upset about the glaciers and global warming and the snowballs and all that, but this is really important to me. It's not often we get to see each other, so, if you don't mind, I plan to take full advantage of the situation."

"D'accord," I said, slightly taken aback by his seriousness.

Laurent glanced in Elliot's direction.

"He looks well, don't you think?" he asked.

"Ehm…"

Then he turned back to me, his eyes alight again.

"Do you think he's happy to see me?"

"Oui. I do."

"I think so, too. When he walked in—did you hear that laugh?"

I leaned my head against the window.

"Mon Dieu," I sighed.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said.

But as Elliot approached the table, I knew that this wasn't nothing.

He held three overflowing pints in his hands, and I knew—not only was this moment not nothing, it might actually be the closest thing _to everything_ I'd ever seen of Laurent's life.


	11. Chapter 11

_Maps to Nowhere…_

* * *

Three pints later and I was feeling a little more...social.

We paid the bill and headed back down toward the water, Laurent leaning against Elliot's side, and me teetering unsteadily beside them. Elliot grabbed my elbow to steady me for stumbling right over the edge of the dock.

"Whoopsie-daisy!" he said. "It's probably not the best time for a swim."

"Merci," I said, brushing my hair back. "But I'm fine."

"So, Delphine," he said. "What brings you all the way up to Ketchikan? Not that I'm complaining."

"Ehm, I just needed to get away."

"Last I heard you were about to get married. Dare I ask?"

As tipsy as I was, I was still sober enough to see Laurent silently shake his head, as if he was calling off Elliot's question, as if for once he had some sense of manners.

"No, it's fine," I said. "It's fine. I'm a big girl. I can talk about my problems."

"Be my guest," Laurent said, leading us onto the deck of the boat.

"It's like this…" I started.

We all sat on the bow of the boat, and somehow another bottle of beer appeared in my hand. I remember the look of genuine concern in Elliot's eyes, and the way he listened and nodded.

"It's like, you know how some people are your horizon?" I said. "Like how some people are so intriguing that you can't stop thinking about them even when they aren't there, even when they aren't...yours anymore?"

"Sure," he said. "I think I can follow. But you have to be careful with horizons. They aren't always what they seem."

"Of course, you do," I said, nodding my head. "Of course, you do. Wait, what do you mean?"

"Well, take tonight for instance. You're shivering."

"I am?" I asked.

When I took stock of my body I realized that I was shivering, but it was as if the shivers had appeared as suddenly and as unexpectedly as the beer bottle, which was now half-empty.

"I guess I am!"

"I don't know if you noticed, but as we've been sitting here, the temperature has dropped quite dramatically."

"I hadn't noticed, but now that you mention it—"

"Every good sailor knows that when the temperature drops like this, it means a lot of cold air has moved in, and it's not good sailing weather."

"Why?"

"Well," he said, "Stand up and I'll show you."

We all three stood up, me with a little extra help from Laurent. Elliot switched off all the lights on the boat then pointed our eyes out toward the mouth of the harbor.

"It's not so easy to see here, but if we were to sail out onto the open water, the horizon would be almost indistinguishable."

"Indistinguishable? What do you mean?"

"He means," Laurent said, "That on a night like tonight, with no moon and no fog, you wouldn't be able to tell the sky from the sea so easily."

I looked out. I saw the black ink night filled with stars, and I saw the black wine of the water below.

"It seems clear enough to me."

"Perhaps it seems that way, but you know, that's the trick with false horizons, you think you know what you are seeing, you think everything is clear, but it's just an optical illusion, and so you sail along, rather confident that the path before you is clear until— _BAM!_ "

Elliot clapped his hands together. I jumped in my skin.

"That's it," Laurent continued. "That's all it takes, you slam into an iceberg, or the shore, or another ship, things that you had no way of seeing or knowing were even there, because the distance between the false horizon and the true horizon is a haze-filled mirage."

"I don't think I follow," I said.

"Here, it's like this…" Elliot said.

He led me into the bridge of the boat. He pulled out some maps. He scribbled diagrams with rays and curves and hypotheticals. He even took out a tiny globe which he spun before my in a show of enthusiasm.

And through all of this, I nodded my head up and down because I thought I started to understand. Though after that last beer, things were kind of blurry.

"So it's all a mirage," I finally said.

"Yes, but only sometimes."

"So I can't trust the horizon—I shouldn't."

"No," Elliot said, leaning heavily on the steering wheel. "No, that's not the point. The point is, if for some reason you were sailing along and you were sidelined by something—or someone—that you couldn't predict...then it's not really your fault."

"The horizon is bullshit! Idealistic bullshit!"

"I don't…" Elliot looked to Laurent for support. "Oh, dear, I think I've gotten off track somewhere."

"What he is trying to say," Laurent interjected, "Is that, even when the path seems clear, there are always going to be things you can't predict."

Disheartened, I turned away.

"I just shouldn't sail. I'm the worst sailor. I've sunk my ship. No, I've sunk two ships now. Neither Melanie nor Cosima will ever talk to me again."

"Maybe we should just drop the metaphors," Laurent said.

He touched my shoulder before pulling me in for a hug.

"You are a good person," he said. "You have a good heart, and it's full of love. Maybe, it just wasn't full for Melanie."

There was a moment of awkward silence in the bridge. I saw Elliot glancing around, as if looking for something.

"You know what you should do," he said.

He reached for a pencil and a crumpled up chart. He handed them to me over Laurent's shoulder.

"Write a letter. Write them both a letter. Even if you never send them, it might make you feel better."

"That's a great idea," Laurent said, letting me go.

"Yeah, maybe," I said, taking the pencil half-heartedly.

"Look, why don't we go downstairs where it's warmer."

"Non," I said. "You guys go ahead. I'm going to stay here awhile."

"You sure?"

I nodded my head and stretched out the crumpled up chart on the counter, smoothing its sides with my fingertip. Laurent left me with a kiss on the cheek, and Elliot was already below deck somewhere. Soon, I was left alone with the stacks of maps and the dull pencil.

I set to work right away, determined to get all of my angsty drunk words out before they ate me up from the inside. I scrawled and scribbled across the back of the chart, and when I had filled that one up, I reached for another. But then I saw the front of the thing and I recognized the coast line right away. It was California.

How many times had I looked at the curving coastline and dreamed of visiting San Francisco?

I thought of Josh, sitting across from me in that cafe in Paris. I thought of the way I had tried to act cool, not wanting him to see my excitement when he asked if I wanted to join him. I thought of that night, when I returned home and took out all my old maps, unable to believe it was finally happening.

I thought of the day, nearly my last day in America, when I first laid eyes on Cosima. I thought of how easy it was to leave Josh right then and there. My heart had jumped ship almost instantaneously.

And when I met Melanie?

No, my heart was not so quick then. But still, I had made the choice. I had chosen one over the other.

"And I was wrong," I whispered to myself.

I knew it as surely as I knew I was right about Josh.

My lip trembled as I said it. I glanced around, somehow afraid that someone heard me say it out loud. And then, I started to giggle. It was a sad, half-hearted kind of laugh, not more than a nervous chuckle.

"I made a mistake," I said. "So what?"

I ran a finger over the top of the chart. I could not understand what it said. There were circles and circles. They overlapped each other. They overlapped the coast. They demarked something that I could not understand. But as I moved my finger along the coast line, down, down toward San Francisco, I felt their distance.

 _You've gone too far_ , they seemed to say. _You can't come back now._

And it was true. How had I gotten all the way to Alaska? And how far was Alaska from San Fransisco, anyway? How long would it take to return? I had to return sometime, right?

The chart could not tell me, because this chart was only of Northern California.

I pulled out my phone and googled it.

 _1,925 miles._

I shrugged and wiped a tear from my eye.

Yes, it was far, but not as far as Paris.

I went back to the chart. I flipped it over. And with a renewed sense of purpose, I set pencil to paper to continue my letter to Cosima.

But no sooner had I started writing did the pencil lead snap right off the tip and roll away.

Frustrated and with my hand still on my phone, I wondered why I was writing with a pencil and paper anyway. What I had to say would fill pages and pages of nautical charts. What was I going to do? Take them all with me? At best they were rough drafts. I could never send a letter to Cosima on the back of a chart.

Why not skip the handwritten step and go straight to digital?

I settled back into the Captain's chair with my phone in hand. I opened up the notes app and I picked up right where I had left off...

 _So you see, it was an error in judgement to think that because our snowball melted - well, I assumed it had melted without every really asking you about it - well, i think i did ask you about it once, but then it seemed like you agreed. Anyway, I don't want to go over all the same old arguments…_

 _What i'm trying to say is i made a mistake. Maybe our snowball melted and maybe it didn't, but either way, I want you to know that I want you, in whatever shape or form you might come in._

 _And the reason I know i want you over anyone else is because every time i hear something new, or see something beautiful, like the place where the dark blue Pacific meets the electric icy blue of the glacier run-off, you are the first person i want to tell._

 _For instance, Laurent at this very moment, is downstairs with his "friend" Elliot, and you are the one I want to tell about it. You are the one I want to lay in bed with and gossip with and share all the dull details of the day, and all the bright details, too, like the fact that Laurent basically flirts like a shy school girl. And of course, seeing someone else's love makes you reflect on your own love, and when i look at them, I see you and me._

 _And of course, I can hear their sounds, and half of me is grossed out to know that my brother is probably getting it on, but the other half of me can hardly blame him. I have no idea how long they have waited to see each other. And of course, hearing other people humping, makes you think about your own humping, like all the people you've humped, and which was your best hump ever._

 _You, Cosima. YOu were my best hump ever. And still, I can remember the first time. I remember the way you touched me. I remember the shivers that took over my body, and even now I'm shivering just thinking of your hand on my bare stomach, on my bare thigh._

 _And I wonder if that is all we were? Just good fucking? What happened to us in the meantime? What happened to us when we were apart? How did we let the space in our bed become the space in our hearts? How did we become strangers?_

 _And now this boat rocks back and forth and I can remember the way you rocked me in your arms that last night in San Francisco. That was my best fuck ever._

 _It was the best because your eyes were shining the whole night. It was the best because I wanted you more than I ever wanted someone. I wanted you under me, over me, behind me...inside me. I wanted your smell and your taste, your motion and sweetness. I wanted the dark in your eye and the escape of your breath. I wanted the curl of your toes and the clench of your thighs. I wanted you wet-yes, that violent wetness-the sign of your arousal that drove me to maddening passion._

 _It was the best because you were the first. The first breast in my mouth, the first... cunt. You were the first elegant line, a shadow in the dark from shoulder to neck to chin. The first cheek soft like a butterfly, the first embrace, the first push, the first thrust from my gut, thrust from my crotch. You were the first form, on your knees before me, a sight I had never seen, a sight that ignited the knot of fire in my belly and sent it rushing up and out._

 _It was the best because we were both so certain. YOu wanted me to come back to the States. And I never wanted to leave. SO why did I? Why did I, when all I want is to be back in your bed, back in your apartment, back in your sweetness? But if I did come back, how could you trust me? How could I trust myself? How do we know that I wouldn't just leave again?_

 _How do we know I'm not the leaving type? Josh, You, Melanie. Leaving seems to be what I'm good at._

 _But that night, I didn't want to leave. YOu made love to me over and over again, and you said you were giving me a reason to come back. NOw I wonder if the offer still stands - Do you still want me back, Cosima?_

I paused. There was the question. She had answered it, the night before the wedding, but still I couldn't believe it. Still I needed to hear it one more time.

I sighed.

I thought typing the letter would make me feel better, would offer some sort of catharsis, but instead I was exhausted with aching thumbs. I hardly even remember setting my phone aside. I hardly remember pulling a peacoat over my shoulders and curling up in the Captain's chair to sleep. I hardly remember falling asleep at all.

But I do remember waking up. I remember the gentle sway of the boat. I remember the soft light of dawn over the top of the mountains. I remember the awful chill that gripped at my toes and my fingertips. I remember the taste of beer in my mouth.

I stretched my legs out and listened. The boat was silent. Laurent never came looking for me in the night―not that I could blame him.

I wish I could say I had more clarity that morning, but to be honest I think I was still very drunk.

I did, however, have a vague sense that I'd reached an epiphany the night before. I reached for my phone to remind myself.

I swiped on the thing to find it still on the Notes app. Except that at the bottom of where I had written my note, there was a little dialogue bubble, as if someone was about to reply.

 _But that doesn't make sense,_ I thought. _No one can reply to a note―MERDE!_

This wasn't the Notes app at all! This was Messenger!

"I typed the whole fucking thing in Messenger!?" I shouted, scrolling and scrolling back up.

My heart pounded at the realization. I checked and re-checked. It was true! I had sent the whole thing to Cosima, and the worst part was, that little ellipses at the bottom meant she was about to write back.

I watched it for what felt like hours, though I'm sure it couldn't have been more than five or ten minutes. I watched it pop up, then disappear―pop up, then disappear again. She either had too much to say or didn't want to talk to me at all. Oh! The agony of watching her teeter back and forth between the two!

Unable to watch my screen any longer, I nearly threw the whole phone over the side of the boat.

But then finally, the response came―a response so small, it was almost laughable in comparison to the block of gushing drunk text above. It was a single word.

 _Yes._

I threw the phone away from me. It landed on the other side of the room, but even from where I was, I could see another little reply bubble pop up. I leapt from the chair, snatching the phone up just in time to see the next message.

 _Obvs._


	12. Chapter 12

It was a beautiful summer day in San Francisco, which I had come to learn was unusual. It was my first day back, you see. In fact, I had only been in town for the amount of time it took me to get from the port to the California Academy of Sciences.

I paused on the steps and looked up.

 _This is it,_ I thought. _The place where it all started._

I was underdressed and ill-prepared to see her—to see Cosima—but that didn't matter anymore. I took a deep breath and went inside.

It was late afternoon and the school crowds were just starting to clear out. I walked past herds of children, and it reminded me of that first day. It reminded me of the story of the alligator, and the moment when I'd first laid eyes on her.

I mouthed the words to myself as I walked toward the aquarium, "el lagarto…"

I walked and searched, and walked and searched, expecting to find her in her khaki shorts and polo shirt again. I made three rounds through the aquarium, before finally stopping to ask Claude the alligator if he had seen her. He barely moved at all. I was starting to lose hope.

I remembered the last text message. Yes, the last message she had sent:

 _Meet me at the museum._

Why hadn't I clarified before my phone died?

I went to the little tank where she had been that night. I leaned over the wall. I reached a hand in and stroked the leathery sea cucumber. I shivered at the sensation, smiled for a moment, then returned my attention to the crowds.

That's when I saw her across the room, very near to the door that she had once led me through, the one that led to the staircase where we'd first kissed.

I shivered at the memory.

She was not in her khakis and polo. No, she wore a black dress, an oversized sweater, intricate fishnets stockings, and delicate flats. Her hair was pulled up into a bun. Turquoise earrings dangled from her ears. She spoke with a man, someone I didn't recognize. She looked put together, professional even, as she directed this colleague toward one of the exhibits.

I moved slowly closer until I could hear her words. She said something about traffic flow and displays—I wasn't listening that closely. No, I was watching, seeing.

The closer I got, the more I saw.

I saw the fine lines in her brow. I saw the dark circles under her eyes. She was utterly focused on the task at hand, but I got the impression something else—perhaps a whole universe of "something elses"—was at the back of her mind.

She paused mid-sentence, and gazed off into the unseen distance.

"Like this?" her colleague said, relocating a cardboard cutout of a dolphin slightly to the right.

"Hmm?" she said, snapping back to the present moment.

"Would you like it like this?" he asked again.

"Oh, sure—yes, exactly. Just like that."

She turned away from him and, with her head down, almost walked right into me.

"Cosima…" I said.

She jumped back, startled.

"Delphine! God! You could have messaged."

"My phone is dead. You said to meet you here."

We stood face to face for only a moment, but it dragged on like an eternity. I saw too many emotions cross her face—joy and disappointment, fear and relief, attraction and sadness—too many to name them all. Her face told stories that I wasn't sure I was ready to hear. Her face told of all the times I'd hurt her and all the times I'd set her on fire.

I wondered if my face told the same.

We read each other silently, as if comparing narratives for conflicting facts. My heart began to pound, as if this were a dangerous thing to do. But then her stark expression changed, became buoyant, and I became buoyant with her.

She smiled. She stepped forward. She pulled me into a hug. And I hugged her, too. Of course, I did! I hugged her so hard, that her toes lifted from the ground.

A moment later she became heavy in my arms. I heard a sniffle or two, then a whispered, _I love you._

 _Je t'aime. Je t'aime._

"Are you working?" I said.

"Yes, but I was getting ready to leave—I'm the boss now. Can you believe that?"

"Yes, of course, I can."

She smiled. "Let me just finish a few things up, grab my stuff, and we can go."

"Sure," I said.

I passed the time by walking the old familiar path one more time. Now that I had found her, I could slow down, I could pay attention. Yes, there was the bar area. Yes, there was the space that changed into a dancefloor at night. The _Animal Attractions_ exhibit had been replaced by something else, a photography exhibit that I didn't have the heart to wander through.

And when she returned we meandered out of the museum through a rear exit. We didn't say much. We simply walked along the winding path that led through Golden Gate Park. The sun was only just starting its descent toward the west. It reminded me of another day―the day at the carnival.

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

"I'm not really sure," she said. "I was hoping you knew."

I paused. We found ourselves standing before a large wooden gate marked with an informational sign: Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden.

"This place looks nice," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "I've always meant to come here, but I never found the time."

"Do you have time now?"

"Yes."

As soon as we walked through the gate, it was like walking into another country, another time. The architecture was all wood, in the old Japanese style, simple and elegant and in harmony with nature.

And the nature itself...the trees rose to great heights, shading the garden from the California sun. An assortment of bridges crisscrossed over small pods and brooks. A waterfall whispered nearby, as if revealing the secret to both solitude and serenity. Even the sunlight seemed different here, filtered by the bonzai trees and softened by the green moss on the rocks.

I felt quite calm and unhurried to speak.

So we walked in silence, crossing one bridge and then the next, until we came upon a statue of the Buddha sitting cross-legged with his eyes half-closed. There was a halo behind his head.

Cosima stopped there, gazing up at the statue.

"Did I ever tell you that my mother used to meditate like this for hours?"

"I think so."

"It used to scare me," she continued.

"Why?"

She took a long time to think about her answer, so long that I wasn't even sure she had heard my question. But the waterfall in the distance whispered for me to wait, and so I waited.

"Because...she was so quiet." She stared up at the Buddha with her arms crossed.

"Is quiet scary?"

"I guess so, or maybe it used to be."

"Why?"

She turned to look at me. "I have always hated quiet. My mind doesn't do well there. It goes to dark places, negative places."

"I know what you mean."

"I prefer moving, even if it's in my own thoughts. But lately―since you left―it seems like I find myself falling into silence more often than I used to."

"And? What do you find there? Still fear?"

"Sometimes…" she said. "And sometimes not."

Her eyes began to well with tears.

"What else?" I said, just barely brave enough to ask.

"Anger," she said. "Lots of anger. Disappointment. Sadness, sometimes."

"I know," I whispered, but I think the waterfall carried the sound away with it.

Cosima wiped at her own tears. "But other times," she continued, "I remember the beautiful things. Other times I laugh at things we have said or done. I remember small moments, like the day you arrived in America, and the night at the carnival, and little kisses or mornings that have no significance now, and jokes you used to tell...and, those times...I smile."

I reached for her hand then. I squeezed it hard, smiling myself. "I remember those things, too."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what, Cosima?"

"Because, I let my fear ruin everything."

"If you did, then so did I."

At that we turned away from the Buddha, still hand in hand. We walked along the winding path, still in silence, until finally we came upon a wonderful little bridge that arched over the water at an exaggerated angle. I was so charmed by the sight of it, that I gasped and squeezed Cosima's hand a little harder.

A small group of tourists passed by, no more than three or four of them following behind a Japanese woman in a safari hat and purple windbreaker. She paused in front of the eccentric bridge, pointing in its direction as she spoke.

"And this is perhaps the most popular feature in the Japanese Tea Gardens due to its unusual shape and architecture," she explained. "It is the Moon Bridge, popular first in China and then Japan."

I found myself moving closer and listening. Gently, I pulled Cosima along with me.

"It was designed with such a high arch to allow barges to pass beneath and pedestrians to cross overhead. As you can see, there are no barges here to worry about, and so it was constructed for purely aesthetic reasons."

There was a handful of giggles at the guide's joke. I found myself smiling, too.

"If you look closely you can see that a full circle forms due to the reflection in the water, and this, of course, symbolizes the moon."

The guide became quiet, perhaps to let her audience appreciate the moment.

"May we walk across it?" someone asked.

"Of course."

After the tourists passed, the tour guide looked back at us, waving us forward to take our turn over the top steps of the bridge.

"This bridge is quite popular for romance," she said, though whether she was speaking to us of the rest of her group, I couldn't tell. "The bridge represents the self, and the reflection represents the partner. It takes both to complete the moon. But then, again, is the moon really ever complete, or is it only an illusion? This is what couples must contemplate. This is the mystery of love, is it not?"

I climbed to the top of the bridge and looked down. I saw Cosima's reflection looking up at me from the water. She smiled.

We lingered there on top of that little bridge, high above the pond below as the tour group passed on and out of hearing range.

"It's lovely," Cosima said.

"It is."

"Look."

She pointed down at the still waters, at a floating field of green leaves that I barely recognized.

"What?" I said.

"There, the flower."

I looked again, and I spotted it, a small pink blossom—a lotus flower, the only one in the entire field, fully bloomed and floating on the surface of the still pond.

"The lotus," I whispered.

"Do you think it is our lotus?" she said.

I looked at her then, not at her reflection but straight at her.

"Marry me."

"What?"

"Cosima. Marry me. I mean it. I can't imagine any of this without you. I thought I could. But it was all wrong."

"Delphine, I—"

I kissed her, a gentle kiss that grew suddenly passionate. I felt my body warm against hers. I felt her hands pull and tug. I felt my heart pound in my chest.

When the kiss was over we looked at each other and we knew. We needed more privacy. We needed two to three years worth of privacy and we needed it in one night.

We found ourselves in a taxi not long after that, sitting hand in hand, just like that first night.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

We looked at each other.

"I guess to your place?" I said.

"You mean _our_ place?" she said with a wink.

And she was right. It was our place. It had always been. I knew it as soon as she told the address to the driver. I knew it when we arrived and I glanced up at the old windows. I knew it as I climbed the stairs, as I sniffed the musty air in the dim hallway. I knew it when I stepped inside the door and the pink light of the sunset filtered in through the kitchen window.

Everything was familiar. Everything was fresh. Everything was vivid and bright and warm and glowing. I could not tell if I was walking into a dream or waking up from one. She had not changed anything, not the arrangement of the furniture, not the collection of empty wine bottles that lined the counter, not the silk robe that hung from her bathroom door.

Meanwhile I had tried to change everything for myself. I sat on the edge of her bed and let that sink in. She opened the window by the bed, and the air in the room shifted. She sat down next to me, and for a moment we were quiet. But then she stood right back up again.

"Do you want something to drink? Wine, maybe?"

"Non," I said, reaching for her hand.

"I just think maybe it would make this a little easier."

"Make what easier?"

"I don't know—this." She pointed back and forth between us. "I mean, there are a lot of things we need to work out, don't you think?"

"Yes, of course. But is that what's really scaring you?"

"I don't know." She took a step away with her arms crossed.

"Cosima, come here."

She took a tentative step forward.

"Don't you think it's time we face it?"

"Face what?"

I moved backwards on the bed, until I sat completely cross-legged in the center of it. I beckoned her to join me, which she did, if not reluctantly. She sat across from me, until we sat facing each other, our knees touching.

"I'm sorry for leaving," I said, quietly.

"I'm sorry for leaving, too."

"I'm sorry I didn't talk to you."

"How could you? I think I made it pretty impossible."

"I'm sorry that—"

"Delphine, let's just pretend like—I don't know—like none of this ever happened. Like we both didn't make these stupid mistakes and hurt each other. You are here now, and I'm so tired of thinking about these things. I'm so tired of wondering what I could've done differently. I just want to be here with you now."

She held my hand.

"I understand," I said. "But I don't want to pretend it didn't happen. No mud, no lotus, right?"

She sighed and looked away. A tear fell from her cheek to her lap.

"I was scared that you wouldn't love me. Why would you, a beautiful, intelligent, talented professor? I worked in an aquarium, barely making more than minimum wage, barely able to afford to pay the gas bill. I thought that the only thing I had was my mind. I thought the only thing you loved was my intelligence, and so I felt like I had to prove it you, over and over. I felt like my scientific accomplishments were the only way to keep you."

"That's not true—"

"I never said it was rational." She wiped at her tears. "Of course, it was irrational. Of course, I was totally misguided and I pushed you away. Some part of me wanted to prove to myself that my fears were right all along, that one day you would leave me because you'd realize I wasn't good enough."

"Good enough? Cosima you have always been good enough. I have always wanted you—more and more of you! But then you disappeared. It seemed like the more I wanted you—just you—the more you pulled away. Your attention was fleeting, and your presence was something I had to beg for. I felt utterly ridiculous sometimes, the way I needed you, but it was like you couldn't see it, or didn't want to."

"I know."

"Do you see it now? How much I love you?"

"Yes," she said, leaning forward with her head in her hands. She covered her eyes as she sobbed. "And do you know how much I love you?"

"Yes," I said, pulling her into my arms. "Yes. Je t'aime. Je t'aime."

She let me hold her until she could no longer breathe, until we both laughed at the snot in our noses. I went to the bathroom for the tissue and she waited on the bed.

"Maybe we do need that wine after all," I said as I handed the box over.

She nodded her head vigorously from behind a tissue and a moment later I found myself standing in the middle of the kitchen alone. The sky had grown darker while we were talking, and so the kitchen was lit only by the street lights reflecting off the ceiling and onto the linoleum floor. I didn't turn the light on for some reason, but rather walked to the counter in the dark and reached for the line of empty wine bottles.

I started by the sink, running my hand along the lables. I saw bottles that I didn't recognize, but as I walked toward the refrigerator, as I walked to beginning of the collection, as I reached back, searching the second row tucked closest to the wall, I found it, the Alpha Omega. And next to it, I saw other bottles I recognized, bottles we'd drank together over dinners or late night conversations. I saw the bottle from the night I'd arrived, and the bottle we drank on her birthday.

 _Here it is_ , I thought. _Our entire history._

"Delphine?" she called from the bedroom. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm having trouble finding an unopened bottle."

"Oh, shit!" Cosima said, stepping out into the kitchen. "I don't think I even have one. God! I'm totally thoughtless."

"No, no, it's fine," I said. "I'll go get something."

"Right now?"

"Yeah," I said, already at the door.

"But I don't want you to leave."

"Cosima, I'm not leaving, not ever again."

She kissed me. "Okay."

I hurried down the stairs and out the door. It felt good to get out onto the street. It felt good to be in the old neighborhood again. And when I stepped into the liquor store, it felt nice to be recognized.

"Hello, stranger," the old woman said. "Long time, no see. Where have you been?"

"I moved to another neighborhood and almost married someone else. But then I didn't...most recently, Alaska."

She shrugged her shoulders as if she had heard stranger things.

"We don't have the Alpha Omega this week," she said, stepping out from behind the counter. "But I think I have something similar."

She picked up a bottle and began to describe its qualities to me, but I wasn't really listening. Instead, I was imagining that bottle on the kitchen counter with the rest, and something about that just didn't seem right.

"Let's say I didn't want wine tonight. What else would you suggest?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You are full of surprises." She led me back to the counter and reached for a bottle behind the bar. "This is what I drink when I want to have a good time."

I smiled to myself, paid, and hurried back up to the apartment with the brown paper bag stuffed under my arm.

When I got home—yes, home—I found Cosima in the bathroom, just stepping out of the shower, just pulling on the silk robe. She looked up when she saw me, pulling the robe shut at the waist. Her skin was flushed, and I knew what she would smell like—baby powder.

"Did you find something?" she said.

"Yes, but it's not what you think."

I pulled the bottle out of the brown paper bag. Her eyes went wide.

"Whiskey?" she said.

"Yeah," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I thought we could use a little change—a fresh start."

She smiled. "Do you know who else could use a fresh start?"

I shook my head, not sure what she was talking about.

"You," she said. "When was the last time you showered?"

I laughed because she was right. Immediately, I began undressing, and by the time I got in the shower and got out, I felt quite new.

I stepped out of the bathroom with wet hair and damp skin. Cosima lay face down on the bed, wearing nothing at all, not even the robe, which had been tossed aside onto the floor. Her eyes were closed and her lips were soft against the pillow. Her back rose and fell in a heavy rhythm that made me think she was asleep.

I thought for a moment to pull a blanket over her and leave her be for the night, but as I walked closer, as I stepped around the foot of the bed, I couldn't take my eyes from her back or from the round soft curve of her ass. It rose and fell, and there between her legs was the small swell of her pussy. I use these words to describe her, because they are the only words available to me, but they seem too crass for what I saw in that moment.

The feeling of the moment was not crass at all, but tender. I stepped toward the bed. I crawled onto it and over her. I pressed my hips down against her ass, pushing gently against the soft flesh of her bottom. I kissed the back of her neck, and she stirred beneath me, but just barely.

I felt her press her bottom up against my hips even as I pressed down against her. It was the subtlest of motions, but the sensation it stirred shot right through me.

I kissed her soft cheek and her eyes fluttered open. Lazily, she reached for my hand. Lazily, she intertwined her fingers with mine. Lazily, she turned her face away from me, until she was face down in the pillow. I kissed her again, on her shoulder, on her neck, on the back of her ear.

It was the kiss on the ear that got her. She moaned and pressed her whole body back against me, not pushing me away but drawing me closer to her.

"I missed you—" I whispered.

"I missed you!" She replied so fast that I can't be sure who said it first.

I found myself grinding against her, covering all of her with all of me. And beneath me, she writhed, not in pain, but in pleasure.

Yes, finally, I saw her pleasure—languid and lovely, quiet and calm, but rising, rising.

She lifted her head and moaned, propping herself up on her elbows.

I sat up then, straddling her bottom for better traction. I hardly knew what to call my wanting, but whatever it was, she wanted it, too. She arched her back, holding her hips at just the right angle, so that each thrust of my pelvis was met with the soft flesh of her ass. Each thrust was met with a gasp, shudder and moan.

Her head fell forward into the pillow. It was only then that I noticed the headboard banging against the wall. I was pounding her hard, but still, it wasn't hard enough. I grabbed hold of her shoulder, and in the process, pushed her even further down, until her chest was flat against the mattress. If it bothered her, she didn't protest. In fact, the harder I pushed down, the more she writhed beneath me, the more her pleasure grew, until finally, she turned her head and moaned…

"I want your cock."

I froze. My concentration was simultaneously derailed and reinvigorated. "What?"

"I want your cock," she said again, her tone just as pleading.

"You mean—?"

She nodded her head.

"Are you sure—?"

"Yes!"

It only took a moment to process her request, and then I was up, prancing around the room on shaky legs. "Where is it?"

"There," she said, pointing to the dresser. "In the top drawer."

I pulled open the drawer, and there, beneath a pile of socks and panties, I found the strap-on and the bottle of lube. I slipped the harness on as quickly as I could. I glanced up to see her watching me, and I might have been embarrassed if it weren't for the look in her eyes. I paused.

It was that same look, that same dark something that I had seen the first night we met—the look of desire.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" she said.

"I love you," I said, standing in the middle of her room, wearing a strapon and holding the lube in my hand like a fool.

She laughed and beckoned me over.

I kissed her once before straddling the back of her legs.

"What should I—? How do I—?"

"I think," she said, "just start slow."

"I don't want to hurt you." And it was true. I never wanted to hurt her ever again. "Tell me if I hurt you."

"I will," she said.

My thighs trembled as I lubed my cock. I was both excited and embarrassed at what I was about to do. I was on fire for her but still so hesitant.

"Just to be clear," I said, running one finger along the curve of her ass. "You want me to put it in your—"

"Yes!" she said, kicking a foot up behind me. "Just do it!"

"Okay," I said.

I grabbed hold of the shaft of my cock with one hand and grabbed hold of her ass with the other. I spread her cheeks. I rubbed the tip of my cock against her.

She went rigid, already propped up on her elbows.

"Just...use lots of lube!" she said, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Okay."

I reached for the bottle. I squirted a smattering on my fingers, and then, slowly, reaching down between her cheeks, I ran my ran over her pussy and her asshole. I watched as the rigidity of her shoulders gave way and her hips began to circle in a subtle, tentative rhythm.

I grabbed her ass with both hands, suddenly not embarrassed at all, but completely aroused. I spread her cheeks apart and looked down at that part of her, very different from her pussy or clit. I remembered how she had once kissed me there. I remembered the delicate sensations of it. I ran my thumb over it one last time before leaning close, before pressing the tip of my cock against it.

Her shoulders tensed. Her head fell forward. She held her breath and I did, too. I didn't move. I didn't press any further. I held still while she moved beneath me. She circled, circled her hips, and for a few tentative moments, I thought it wasn't going to work out.

But then, I felt the tip slip inside. She gasped. I gasped, too.

Still I didn't move. It was she who pushed back against me, pulling the shaft further into herself, little by little, until finally I was pressed right up against her. She relaxed her neck, falling onto her face in the sheets.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"No," she uttered into the darkness. She reached around, grabbing my leg with her hand. "Come here. Come here."

She pulled down on my ass. She pulled down on my hips. She rocked me against her. And it was easy to do it, to appease her with that slow, steady rhythm.

"Gentle," she whispered. "Slow."

"Yes," I said, falling over onto her back. "Yes, yes, my darling," I said as I kissed her back and neck.

I remembered the first time, back in that hotel room with a view of the bridge. I remembered the darkness and the pointedness of my desire. No one else had ever gathered me up like that, had taken the whole of my sexual energy and focused it, pointed it, directed it—not the way Cosima had.

My rhythm grew faster, my thrusts grew stronger, and before I knew it, she grabbed my hand. Before I knew it, the headboard was banging against the wall.

She reached her other hand down, beneath her belly, between her legs. Her moans grew louder, more intense, or maybe they were mine.

Either way, my arousal grew to the point of desperation, and that's when she squeezed my hand. That's when she pulled me close. That's when she turned her head and slipped two of my fingers into her open mouth.

That was all it took and I was convulsing on her back—coming, coming—while she shuddered beneath me. We shook together, in complimentary waves, me above and her below, a reflection, a full circle.

And when it was over, when the waves of orgasm had passed, we both broke out into a laugh. It was that laugh that brought me back to the present, back to the darkness of the room and the stillness of the air and the chill of the night. It was the laughter that flushed my body with a delicious affirmation.

"I love you," I said.

"Me, too," she whisper-laughed.

Slowly, I pulled out of her, and when my cock was clear, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. She didn't move from where she was. She didn't shift closer. She didn't cuddle or reach out.

She simply turned her head to face me, holding me in her hazy gaze. She laughed again, just a chuckle this time.

"That was...new," she said, her eyes twinkling.

"Yes," I said. "Totally new."

"Is this the beginning of something?" she said.

I smiled and thought for a moment. Then I rolled onto my side, propped myself up onto my elbow and reached out for her. I ran a finger in circles over her sweaty back.

"I don't know," I said. "But I hope so."

"Me, too."

She closed her eyes, resting for a moment with her mouth closed in a lazy smile.

"But…" I said, poking her softly in the ribs. "You never really answered my question."

Her eyes opened slowly. For a moment, her stare was pure, blank, unaffected, as if waking from a very good dream. But then the light of recognition flashed across her face, and she, too, rolled onto her side to face me.

"Which question?" she said with a smirk.

"You know which question," I said, trying to sound brave.

"On the bridge?"

"Mm-hmm," I said, pushing the stray hairs back from her forehead.

She looked up at me from beneath heavy eyelashes. "Yes."

"Yes?"

She inched closer to me, resting her forehead against mine, and pulling her knees up, so that we lay like two shrimps, head to head and knee to knee.

She was quiet for a long time. She was quiet for so long, that I thought she had drifted off again. I felt my own bones settle into the sheets. I felt my own fingers fall asleep where she had clasped them. I felt my own heart grow quiet and my own mind grow calm.

And as I was about to drift to sleep completely, I heard her last whisper, her breath so light that I might have dreamed it after all.

"Yes."


End file.
